Kevin Prufer

Kevin D. Prufer (born 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American poet, academic, editor, and essayist. His most recent books are Churches (Four Way Books, 2014), In A Beautiful Country (Four Way Books, 2011) and National Anthem (Four Way Books, 2008). 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,[1] Boston Review, Georgia Review, and in The Best American Poetry (2003 & 2009). His honors include three 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.

After Prufer 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.