Kevin Prufer

Kevin Prufer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1969. He received a BA from Wesleyan University and MFA degrees from Hollins University and Washington University in St. Louis.

Prufer is the author of nine poetry collections, including The Fears (Copper Canyon Press, 2023); How He Loved Them (Four Way Books, 2018); Churches (Four Way Books, 2014); and Strange Wood (Louisiana State University Press, 1998). He has also edited several volumes of poetry, including Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries (Graywolf Press, 2017), with Martha Collins. He has also published one novel, titled Sleepaway (Acre Books, 2024). 

Of his work, Marie Howe writes, “Kevin Prufer has courage and compassion. And he places words so beautiful and accurate and terrifying along a line you can’t help but read to the end….”

Prufer has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation. He is a professor in the creative writing program at the University of Houston, and a cocurator of The Unsung Masters Series, a book series that brings work by long-forgotten writers to new readers. He lives in Houston, Texas.