Translation
Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days
Northwestern University Press, 2017
Featured on “Literature and History Podcast”
“Johnson’s translation should be an essential text not only for readers of classical poetry, but for those interested in the long history of environmental literature.”
— Margaret Ronda
Presented here in a bilingual edition, Johnson’s translation takes care to preserve the structure of Hesiod’s lines and sentences, achieving a sonic and rhythmic balance that enables us to hear his music across the millennia.
— Northwestern University Press Catalogue
Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land
Penguin Classics, 2009
Featured on “Literature and History Podcast”
“Kimberly Johnson’s The Georgics: A Poem of the Land is something special – an ingenious poet translating another ingenious poet, and transposing his language into English with all its sonority and consonance and assonance…And additionally, Johnson’s notes are thorough and considerate.”
— Douglas Metzger
One of the greatest poems of the classical world, Virgil’s Georgics is a glorious celebration of the eternal beauty of the natural world, now brought vividly to life in a powerful new translation. Expansive in its scope, lush in its language, this extraordinary work is at once a reflection on the cycles of life, death and rebirth, an argument for the nobility of labour and an impassioned reflection on the Roman Empire of Virgil’s times. Kimberly Johnson’s lyrical verse translation captures all the rich beauty and abundant imagery of the original, re-creating this ancient masterpiece for our times.
— Penguin Classics Catalogue
Read a review of Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land in The Times (UK).
Read a review of Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land in The Independent (UK).
Read a review of Virgil’s Georgics: A Poem of the Land in Books and Culture .
Virgil: O Cruel Alexis (Penguin Little Black Classics)
Penguin Classics, 2015
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin’s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries.
Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days: A Bilingual Edition
"In translating Hesiod, a scholar has to evoke both the rustic, conversational tone of Works and Days, as well as the magisterial epic voice of the Theogony, with all of its glittering details. Johnson, already a poet who could write about paint drying on a wall and make tears come to your eyes, makes Hesiod's two very different works come alive in very different ways. This is a beautiful book, and a terrific introduction to Archaic Greek literature." — Douglas Metzger, Literature and History Podcast
Uncommon Prayer
"With the fine artistry, precision, erudition, wit, and lexical magic we have come to expect from Johnson." — Michael Sowder, 15 Bytes
Made Flesh: Sacrament and Poetics in Post-Reformation England
"Kimberly Johnson's dual identity as scholar and poet animates this strikingly original book—not only in its limpid, lively prose, but also in its resonant reappraisal of a seemingly familiar subject. Early modern devotional poetry has often been analyzed in terms of its theological and ecclesiological contexts; the real strength and purchase of Johnson's book lies in its integration of this contextual material with a searching investigation of the formal strategies of poetry as such."— Molly Murray, Columbia University
Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry
"The painstaking work of two poet-scholars, Jay Hopler and Kimberly Johnson, the collection promises to be a crucial source text for scholars, a course text for students and a manual for seekers who wish to find prayers that fit their condition and cast of mind." — Cleveland Plain Dealer
Virgil's Georgics: A Poem of the Land
"Kimberly Johnson's superbly colourful, rhythmic and readable new translation...finds a way of feeding the Virgilian strain of English verse – from Milton to Wordsworth and beyond – back into her lines." — The Independent (UK)