Churches

by Kevin Prufer

Churches explores the way our experience of the world is shaped through the stories we tell about ourselves. These poems braid multiple narratives that often take place in different times, or are seen through the eyes of various speakers. Here Prufer explores the interior and subjective nature of time as he engages with mortality, both as a cultural construct and a deeply personal, unarticulatable anxiety: "In this filtered light, / my brain is a nimbler thing, and strange. It loves / the slow derangements distance brings."

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 2014

About the author

Kevin Prufer's newest poetry collection, The Fears, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2023 and received the 2024 Rilke Prize. His new novel Sleepaway was published in 2024 by Acre Books. He is also the author of several other books of poetry, including 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.

He's edited several volumes of poetry, including New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008; w/ Wayne Miller), Literary Publishing in the 21st Century (Milkweed Editions, 2016; w/ Wayne Miller & Travis Kurowski), and Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries (Graywolf Press, 2017; w/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 a large body of each author's work, printed alongside essays, photographs, and ephemera.

Prufer is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and the low-residency MFA at Lesley University.

Among Prufer's awards and honors are many Pushcart prizes and Best American Poetry selections, numerous awards from the Poetry Society of America, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation. His poetry collection How He Loved Them was long-listed 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 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio, Kevin Prufer studied at Wesleyan University (BA), Hollins College (MA) and Washington University (MFA).

Reviews

[Bradi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Churches" is a stunning work of rapid-fire beauty. Painting his narratives dense with imagery, Prufer explores the intricacies of grief without sacrificing the relativity characteristic to modern poetry.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can only surmise that the author was going through a painful death (I don't want to assume it's the actual poet's actual father), which deeply informed this collection. There is lots of dying--a train porter, a child, an astronaut, an infant, survivors of an apocalyptic scenario, an old wandering man, a surgical patient, an avalanche victim, a car accident victim, a dog, a cat, a father.

I had set this aside to finish other books, but the title poem, "Churches," stayed with me. The image of the girl twirling the postcard rack so hard it tipped and sent cards flying about the store, and the connection to the dying father is astounding. The time jumps and putting definitions in the girl's mouth such as "impermanence," "transience," and "dying" are creepy but so right. This poem is just incredibly memorable and sharp and unique. I've never read anything like it, and I know as a poet myself I don't have the gift to link up these images and make these associations.

Favorite poems are:
Potential Energy Is Stored Energy
Churches
Cleveland Ohio
A Story About Dying
The Idea of the Thing and Not the Thing Itself
Not Near Enough

Lastly, I don't think there's another poet living today who can begin a poem with the line, "In those days, you could leave your child at the city's edge for the wolves."

[Jemmie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"How darkness makes beautiful the same fire daylight ignores. How that queer flower blooms best at night"

"The body, she was saying, is a contested zone between presence and absence, between consciousness and eternal sleep, between the earth and the afterlife, between ourselves and the terrifying ambiguity of the void."

Prufer's collection is a beautiful and often sorrowful reflection about death. His precise prose is astounding & profound.
Any of these dark and lovely poems featuring the grim reaper would make excellent lyrics for a heavy 'death' metal song. A great find that I stumbled upon at my local library by happenstance.

[Roo · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you know me, you know my appreciation for poetry is shamefully limited to my predetermined trinity: Emily Dickinson, E.E. Cummings, and Edgar Allan Poe (I prefer novelistic elements, which has led to my poetic ignorance!). Despite this, "Churches" was a welcome surprise. While at many times the poems were perhaps too abstract for me, there were some absolute gems like “Potential Energy is Stored Energy.” Prufer's life-story is apparent in each poem, which only strengthens its emotional threshold, often leaving me short of breath with its viscerality.

[Ron Mohring · Rating 5 out of 5]

Augh, he's so good at juxtapositions that feel jolting yet absolutely natural. Great control of line and structure. Sometimes heartbreakingly sad. In "From Inside the Avalanche," a dead skier speaks:

"Three months I've hung here like a yolk
and they might not find me/ until the snow melts."

and

". . . In this filtered light,
my brain is a nimbler thing, and strange. It loves
the slow derangements distance brings."

Prufer's slow derangements are impeccably crafted. A solid five.

[Maryfrances · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kevin Prufer is undoubtedly one of the best poets around. His new book Churches is another fine masterpiece of thoughtful poetry. The title poem is profoundly brilliant. I'd recommend his work any day.

[Matt Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

The particular strength of the author’s poetry comes from his use of unexpected perspectives, along with consistently shifting perspectives that tend to add to the reading experience rather than muddying things.

[Staci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning poetry

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

always. just--always. this will stay with me for a very long time.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prufer lays open a death-haunted America in this dark collection, entwining political and personal story lines in sprawling verses that frequently call upon fantastical images: missiles fired from the moon, post-apocalyptic settlements, self-aware bombs. He seems focused on displaying a society that is ill, that indeed seeks out violence and cannot do without it, as in this appeal to "terrorists" in Show Us:

We are a nation of gray old men walking rain-slick streets beneath black umbrellas. / Fill our tall buildings with your vines and blooms, sprinkle us with glitter and with glass, / with thrills and shards of foil and steel!

In a poem called Poetry, he personifies the poem, asking if it has any relevance today as it surveys all the wreckage:

I saw the whole thing. Here I am. Up here. / ... then down I'll fall past my neighbors' windows, down I'll tumble to where that car is burning, / to where that man sleeps inside it and the column of smoke is invisible in the night / and you won't notice my descent, no, you won't cry out, you won't turn and gather around me, you won't ask me any questions at all.

A recognition of the irrelevance of poets today, who are often said to only be talking to each other, in a tiny circle? If all a poet today can really do is rage while being ignored, at least he can do so with style.

while the baby boy slept in his box /
beneath the floorboards they walked across, /
and all night long /
his little dreams rose up on strings /
and filled the house /
that the morning light washed clean.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite having to read the torn remnants of this poetry collection (courtesy of the puppy I was babysitting), I still throughly enjoyed it. I've always enjoyed darker poetry, and Prufer has a way of making the reader really think about the connections he makes within his poems. If you can get a hold of this collection, definitely do it (just avoid puppies).

[D.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kevin Prufer's sublime meditations on life, death, grief and mercy are postcards from the great giftshop of America, its least highways enlivened by Prufer's rhapsodic hymns of forgiveness. He is surely one of the best poets of our time.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary, lapidary and bone-chilling.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this guy's a genius. I preferred National Anthem, but Churches is a gem and there are other perfect bits and pieces in here.

[Abigail Munson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prufer is first a story teller then a poet. His poetry weaves through strange narratives of desperate characters, apocalyptic worlds, spoiled vacations, giant birds, war. But then he weaves realism back through it, his dying father in the hospital, first kisses, brothers, fear, sadness. He creates a world then reality cracks it. My favorite poems were: From inside the avalanche, El Paso, Where Have You Gone?, Churches, Inside the body, Show us and Cleveland Ohio.