Quotes

Photo Credit: Carolla Clift, 2003

Some quotes from reviews of John Balaban’s poetry:

“From the beginning, John Balaban’s gift for language has been wholly devoted to his need to face directly and mine sense from the bewilderment and anguish being implicated in the history and suffering of our time.”
–W.S. Merwin.

“Balaban seems to me our moral spokesperson, our lyricist, our polemicist, exhorter, and consoler: in short, the poet we need.”
–Maxine Kumin.

“The result is a style both tough and flexible, capable of encompassing contrasts of beauty and horror perceived unflinchingly, and of juxtaposing bitter reminders of our sleazy and cruel fin de siecle with a tenderness of feeling and language towards whatever is gentle, vulnerable, and hopeful.”
–Denise Levertov.

“In this intense tumble of polished verse, whose subjects range from Highway 61 to the Acropolis, Balaban proves why he has been a National Book Award finalist twice.”
–Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal, August 2006

“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.”
–Publishers Weekly.

“…poem after poem…hook the eye of the mind and the heart like burrs, like fine, precise, individual fibers of a cactus plant, so minutely and sharply seen that they stick beneath the readers’s skin forever.”
–Patricia Goedicke, New Letters.

“John Balaban is one of the finest poets of his generation, and indeed one of the best poets at work today. When I say “fine,” I mean just that: his poetry communicates a discernment of eye and ear attuned to nuance, subtle variation, and the truths embedded therein. These qualities, coupled with a rare intelligence, a deeply informed worldview and a resistance to navel-gazing or rhetorical pomposity, combine to invest his work with a Classical tenor that has the clarity of good prose and the heft of well-made poetry.”  –Michael Hettich, on Empires.

“An adventurous, strong-spirited work that combines the storyteller’s narrative with the lyric poet’s concern for language and image.”
–Christian Science Monitor, on Blue Mountain.

“The austere, exasperated tenderness of James Agee come to mind, as well as that of James Wright in Two Citizens.”
–Jack Marshall, Poetry Flash.

“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.”
–Briggs Seekins, Harvard Review.

“…a lyric poet as well as a tragic poet with a rare moral voice.”
–Colin Campbell, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“This graceful book by a Lamont winner (After Our War, LJ 5/15/74) is a powerful testimony to hope.”
–Library Journal, on Words for My Daughter.

“Reading more like an adventure tale than poetry, this seemingly casual book is funny, moving, and frequently wise.”
–Booklist, on Blue Mountain.

“John Balaban’s compelling poems are alive with sensuous experience, his perspicuous language embracing both irony and compassion.  …this poet feels the possibilities of redemption in the natural world, and in the power of poetry.”
–Daniel Hoffman.