Kevin Prufer
Professor of English, The Creative Writing Program, The University of Houston
Biography
Kevin Prufer’s most recent poetry collection, The Fears (Copper Canyon Press, 2023), won the 2024 Rilke Prize. His novel Sleepaway was published by Acre Books in 2024. He is also the author of The Art of Fiction (2021), How He Loved Them (2018), Churches (2014), In a Beautiful Country (2011), and National Anthem (2008), all from Four Way Books. His forthcoming books are Good People: Poems (Copper Canyon, 2027) and the novel Summer of Shooting Stars (Slant Books, 2027).
Prufer is the 2026 Texas Poet Laureate.
He has edited several volumes of poetry, including New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008), co-edited with Wayne Miller; Literary Publishing in the 21st Century (Milkweed Editions, 2016), co-edited with Wayne Miller and Travis Kurowski; and Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries (Graywolf Press, 2017), co-edited with Martha Collins.
With Wayne Miller and Martin Rock, Prufer directs the Unsung Masters Series, a book series devoted to bringing the work of great but little-known authors to new generations of readers through the annual republication of substantial bodies of their work, accompanied by essays, photographs, and other archival material.
Prufer is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.
His awards and honors include numerous Pushcart Prizes and Best American Poetry selections, multiple awards from the Poetry Society of America, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation. His collection How He Loved Them was longlisted for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the Julie Suk Award for the best poetry book of 2018 from the American literary press.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1969, Prufer studied at Wesleyan University (BA), Hollins College (MA), and Washington University (MFA).
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
My relationship is complicated and somewhat vague. My mother’s mother was raised as Jewish. She grew up in Alabama then moved Northeast to study piano. I believe she largely abandoned her religion and, to the best of my knowledge, her identity as a Jewish woman and, with her husband (a philosopher of aesthetics and an atheist) raised her children in a non-religious household. I have heard from my own mother that this part of her background was not discussed much at home, if at all.
My own parents were divorced when I was very young and my father remarried shortly thereafter. His new wife was from a Jewish family from Long Island, and she was much clearer about her identity as Jewish. My half brother (grudgingly) attended Hebrew school and visits to my father’s new family (which were very frequent — every weekend) made me aware of Jewish holidays, traditions, identity.
My father, however, was also non-religious, from a non-religious family in Germany. He lived through WWII in Germany and moved to the United States after the war to study. His family’s history during the war was complicated and not good. He rebelled against that and had little contact with his family after he came to the United States.
Thus is my relationship to Judaism complex and, in many ways, very American — in its blending of cultures and identities and backgrounds. In many ways, Judaism has been one of the ongoing themes in my family history — I have always known that — but I cannot say I have ever embraced it as a practice. I think of it, rather, as one of many metaphorical figures in the room of my life.
Published Works
BOOKS OF POETRY
Good People (Copper Canyon Press, 2027)
The Fears (Copper Canyon Press, 2023)
The Art of Fiction (Four Way Books, 2021)
How He Loved Them (Four Way Books, 2018)
Churches (Four Way Books, 2014)
In a Beautiful Country (Four Way Books, 2011)
National Anthem (Four Way Books, 2008)
Fallen from a Chariot (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2005)
The Finger Bone (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2002)
Strange Wood (Winthrop Poetry Series, 1998)
NOVELS
The Summer of Shooting Stars (Slant Books, 2027)
Sleepaway (Acre Books, 2024)
EDITED VOLUMES
Write Now: The Great Texas Poetries Anthology. (TCU Press, 2027)
Other Legacies: The Great Unsung American Poets. (Edited with Adrienne Perry & Martin Rock.) (Wesleyan University Press, 2026)
Literary Publishing in the 21st Century. (A completely new edition with new contents, edited with Wayne Miller and Travis Kurowski.) (Milkweed Editions, 2026)
Jean Ross Justice: On the Life & Work of an American Master. (Edited with Ryan Bollenbach.) (The Unsung Masters Series, 2022)
World’d Too Much: The Selected Writings of Russell Atkins. (Edited with Robert C. McDonough.) (Cleveland State University Poetry Center: Cleveland, 2019)
Into English: Poems, Essays, Commentaries. (Edited with Martha Collins.) (Graywolf Press, 2017)
Literary Publishing in the 21st Century. (Edited with Wayne Miller & Travis Kurowski.) (Milkweed Editions, 2016)
The 2015 Pushcart Prize Anthology. (Poetry Editor.) (The Pushcart Press, 2015)
Catherine Breese Davis: On the Life & Work of an American Master. (Edited with Martha Collins & Martin Rock) (The Unsung Masters Series, 2014)
Russell Atkins: On the Life & Work of an American Master. (Edited with Michael Dumanis.) (The Unsung Masters Series, 2014)
Until Everything is Continuous Again: American Writers on W.S. Merwin. (Edited with Jonathan Weinert.) (WordFarm Editions, 2012)
Dunstan Thompson: On the Life and Work of a Lost American Master. (Edited with D. A. Powell.) (The Unsung Masters Series, 2010)
Contemporary American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology. (The Pakistan Academy of Letters, 2010)
New European Poets. (Edited with Wayne Miller.) (Graywolf Press, 2008)
Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems. (Edited with Joy Katz.) (University of Illinois Press, 2007)
The New Young American Poets. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000)
Links to Sample Works
The Poetry Foundation, “Into the Weeds”: LINK
The Poetry Foundation, “In a Beautiful Country”: LINK
The Adroit Journal, “A Dog Barking into the Night”: LINK
