Kent Johnson

Dr. Kent Johnson is an English and Spanish instructor at Highland Community College in northwest Illinois. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Having lived in both the South American country of Uruguay and the United States, Dr. Kent Johnson brings to the midwest radical Spanish words, poems, and recipes for which he instructs his students to collaborate on translations. Highland students benefit from Johnson's experience as a writer, translator, and editor, as well as his years of zen meditation instruction, begun while living in Japan for post-graduate research from 1986-1988.

His recent work translating the poetry of Bolivian author Jamie Saenz has been widely praised. Kent was one of 14 winners of the 2004 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Translation, one of the most sought-after grants in poetry and fiction. Johnson is a co-faculty advisor of Highland’s award-winning literary and arts publication, “The Prairie Wind,” which offers three competitive graduate assistantships each year. He has been a Highland faculty member for 12 years.

Johnson was named the 2004 Illinois Community College Trustees Association Outstanding Faculty Member, and in 2009 he was honored with the Thomas Northrumb Grant for his research into and translation of Spanish zen poetry.

Sources: http://www.highland.edu/academics/staffbio.asp?id=233