“Balaban’s language is lyrical and lovely, lifting us beyond the morass of our complicated lives, instilling in our hearts the hope of an exalted existence here on earth.” ―W.S. Merwin

“Balaban expresses a shrewd understanding of how the world works, and a clarion respect for life.” ―Booklist, starred review

“Balaban is a traveler through history and places at home and abroad, writing in a personal voice that has an uncanny ability to imagine the lives of others. His poetry comes from a deep reading of literature—among other things, he is a renowned translator of Vietnamese poetry—and a willingness to go out into the world to see things for himself.” —PBS NewsHour

“The tensions of Balaban’s subjects—moral, philosophical, political, or even domestic—shake with their own music, whether the framework contains serenity or agitation, as the poems submit their lyrical force in defiance of irony, and even of terror.” —The Massachusetts Review

"Balaban’s emotional range is impressively wide, and deeply human—by turns compassionate and angry, somber and humorous, earnest and ironic.  His voice is strong; his poems are important.”—Harvard Review

“In a way that few poets do, John Balaban truly roams the globe—and the centuries. He has his eye on empires, yes, but also on moments when different slices of history collide… His capacious poems enlarge our eyes on the world.” —Adam Hochschild