Twenty Favorite Books of Prose by Poets
(I’m leaving out those writers who have become much better known for their prose than their poetry—so no Denis Johnson, no Sarah Manguso, no Ingeborg Bachmann, no Deborah Levy, no Ben Lerner, no Guy Davenport, no Ágota Kristóf, even though I think they’re all very good writers. Here instead, arranged in order of preference but with no more than one selection per author, are my twenty favorite books of prose by authors better known for their poetry. I’ll note that this list is almost but not quite evenly divided between works of fiction and works of nonfiction: 9 of one, 11 of the other.)
To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays by Czeslaw Milosz
Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures by Mary Ruefle
The Meadow by James Galvin
I’ve Heard the Vultures Singing: Field Notes on Poetry, Illness, and Nature by Lucia Perillo
Happily: A Personal History—with Fairy Tales by Sabrina Orah Mark
Proxies: Essays Near Knowing by Brian Blanchfield
Monsieur Teste by Paul Valéry
Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places by Naomi Shihab Nye
Gentlemen Callers by Corinne Hoex
My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer by Christian Wiman
A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Cradle Book: Stories and Fables by Craig Morgan Teicher
Byobu by Ida Vitale
The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar *
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
The Principles Behind Flotation by Alexandra Teague
Corpses by Vik Shirley
Easter Weekend by David Bottoms
Black Freckles: Stories by Larry Levis
* He’s probably better known as a fiction writer than a poet already, but his transition from the one to the other is very fresh, so I’m including him.
— April 20, 2026