Kimberly Johnson (born 1971) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and Renaissance scholar.

Life

Johnson was raised in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

. She earned her MA in 1995 from the

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

Writing Seminars, her MFA in 1997

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 89 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2 ...

, and a PhD in 2003 from

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. She teaches courses in creative writing and Renaissance literature at

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

(BYU). Johnson's academic interests include lyric poetry,

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

, and

John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...

. Her work has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', ''Slate'', ''The Iowa Review'', ''32 Poems'', ''The Yale Review'', and ''The Best American Poetry 2020'', and her translations from Latin and Greek have been published in literary and academic journals. She has also published a scholarly examination of 17th-century poetry as well as a number of scholarly articles on seventeenth-century literature. She has edited several collections of essays on Renaissance literature, and an online archive of

's complete sermons. She was married to poet Jay Hopler until his death in June 2022.

Awards

In 2005, she was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship from

the National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

to support the completion of her second collection, ''A Metaphorical God''. In 2011, she received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

Books

Poetry

*''Leviathan with a Hook'', Persea Books, 2002, *''A Metaphorical God,'' Persea Books, 2008, *''Uncommon Prayer,'' Persea Books, 2014, *''Fatal,'' Persea Books, 2022,

Criticism

*''Made Flesh: Sacrament and Poetics in Post-Reformation England'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014,

Translations

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...

, ''

Georgics The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek language, Greek word , ''geōrgiká'', i.e. "agricultural hings) the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from bei ...

'', Penguin Classics, 2009, *

Hesiod Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...

, ''

Theogony The ''Theogony'' () is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogy, genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Homeric Greek, epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one ...

and

Works and Days ''Works and Days'' ()The ''Works and Days'' is sometimes called by the Latin translation of the title, ''Opera et Dies''. Common abbreviations are ''WD'' and ''Op'' for ''Opera''. is a didactic poem written by ancient Greek poet Hesiod around ...

'', Northwestern University Press, 2017.

As editor

*''Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry'', Yale University Press, 2013, *''Divisions on a Ground: Essays on Renaissance Literature in Honor of Donald M. Friedman'', George Herbert Journal Special Series and Monographs, 2008,

References

External links

Author's website

"A Metaphorical God with Poet Kimberly Johnson"
''Thinking Aloud'', Marcus Smith, 9/29/2008
"Poetry: Kimberly Johnson"
''Hammer Readings'', 5/14/09
"Kimberly Johnson"
''Verse Daily''
"A Metaphorical God"
Persea Books
"Leviathan with a Hook"
Persea Books

Penguin Classics Catalogue ;Readings *http://jacket2.org/commentary/remaking-it-new {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Kimberly 1971 births Johns Hopkins University alumni Brigham Young University faculty American women poets University of Iowa alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Living people Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Writers from Salt Lake City Place of birth missing (living people) Translators of Virgil