Kimberly Johnson

Poet. Kimberly Johnson is the author of three poetry collections. One of her most recent collections, Uncommon Prayer, was published in 2014. She is also widely known as a translator of classical poetry, having translated Virgil’s Georgics (Penguin Classics, 2009) and the poems of Hesiod. As a scholar of English Renaissance literature, she published a monograph in 2014 examining the relationship between religion and post-Reformation era poetry.

Kimberly Johnson is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts. She currently resides in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Kimberly Johnson’s participation in the Tbilisi International Literature Festival is supported by the U.S. Embassy in Georgia.

Wrecking Ball

With what stiff-necked resolve do I love a wall!—so true is its red standing, I cannot help but strike. With thrilled perversity, and with a rattling chain, drunk-like I must trace my parabolic path to kiss the courses of brick. Will it save the wall, I wonder, if I throw myself against it with all my might? Every beloved of mine (who now lie head-down in the dust) would have preferred, perhaps, to suffer my indifference instead. Why do I desire it so?—to finish love.

Translated from English by Manana Matiashvili