Kevin D. Prufer (born 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American poet, academic, editor, and essayist. He is Professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.
Life
Prufer graduated from Western Reserve Academy in 1988. He received a B.A. at Wesleyan University and an M.A. at the Hollins University Writing Program. He went on to earn an MFA at Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently Professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and Editor-at-Large of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing, Associate Editor of American Book Review, Co-Curator of the Unsung Masters Series, and the former Vice President/Secretary of the National Book Critics Circle. Prufer currently resides in Houston, Texas, with artist and critic Mary Hallab.
Career
He has published poems, essays, and reviews in literary journals and magazines including The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry, A Public Space, AGNI, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, Boston Review, Georgia Review, and in The Best American Poetry (2003 & 2009).
His honors include four Pushcart Prizes, and awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Academy of American Poets, The Lannan Foundation and other organizations. His first book, Strange Wood, received the 1997 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize (formerly the Winthrop Prize). He has also been awarded a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry.
Kevin is a featured faculty member at the 2018 Conference on Poetry at The Frost Place in Franconia, NH.
Published works
Full-Length Poetry Collections
Strange Wood (Louisiana State University Press, 1998) The Finger Bone (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2002) Fallen from a Chariot (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2005) National Anthem (Four Way Books, 2008) In A Beautiful Country (Four Way Books, 2011) Churches (Four Way Books, 2014) How He Loved Them (Four Way Books, 2018) The Art of Fiction (Four Way Books, 2021)
Anthologies Edited
The New Young American Poets (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000) Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems (University of Illinois Press, 2007, with Joy Katz) New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008, with Wayne Miller) Dunstan Thompson: On the Life & Work of a Lost American Master (Pleiades Press, 2010, with D. A. Powell) Until Everything is Continuous Again: On the Work of W. S. Merwin (WordFarm, 2012, with Jonathan Weinert) Russell Atkins: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Unsung Masters Series, 2013, with Michael Dumanis) Catherine Breese Davis: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Unsung Masters Series, 2015, with Martha Collins and Martin Rock) Literary Publishing in the 21st Century (Milkweed Editions, 2016, with Wayne Miller and Travis Kurowski) Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries (Graywolf Press, 2017, with Martha Collins)
Poetry Collections In Translation
Wir wollten Amerika finden (Luxbooks, 2011) (German translation by Norbert Lange and Susanna Mewe) Himno Nacional (Bartleby Editores, 2021) (Spanish translation by multiple translators)
Honors and awards
1997 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize
2002 Pushcart Prize
Best American Poetry 2003
2004 George Bogin Memorial Award
2004 Pushcart Prize
2006 George Bogin Memorial Award
2007 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry
2007 Pushcart Prize
Best American Poetry 2009
2009 Finalist, The Poets Prize
Best American Poetry 2010
2010 Lannan Foundation Fellowship
2011 Finalist, The Rilke Prize
2012 Academy of American Poets Notable Book
2013 Finalist, The Poets Prize
2014 The New York Times "Ten Favorite Poetry Books of 2014" for Churches
2016 Pushcart Prize
2018 Lyric Prize of the Poetry Society of America
2019 Long-list, the Pulitzer Prize for poetry
2019 Winner, The Julie Suk Award for the best poetry book from the American literary press 2019 Finalist, The Rilke Prize for the best book by a mid-career American poet