Kevin Prufer

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.

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.

His first book, Strange Wood, received the 1997 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize (formerly the Winthrop Prize).

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, 2021).

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.

He has also been awarded a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry.

Full-Length Poetry Collections

Anthologies Edited

Poetry Collections In Translation