Empires

“Written with a storyteller's verve, this collection entertains as it provokes and will appeal to may readers.” —Library Journal



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



"At its best, John Balaban's Empires shows an exceptional poet growing still better in his seventh decade. Taken altogether, it is a strong piece of work that rises, at times, to that level at which reviews cannot do justice." —Eclectica



"In his new book, Empires, [Balaban] once again demonstrates a piercing moral vision of humanity broken by colonialism and war and ethnic violence, yet he also offers possibilities for healing." —Los Angeles Review of Books



"Balaban has long been one of our finest poetic craftsmen working in the lyric mode. In his latest collection, Empires, Balaban once again demonstrates why he is celebrated as a major American poet." —War, Literature, and the Arts



"I could not put Empires down. Balaban presents the distant past as though it is right there before us, and the present with renewed understanding. 'Gods and Empire.' 'Returning After Our War.' The insights are this-minute fresh, the language invigorating." —Grace Schulman



“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



“In these poems, John Balaban plumbs the recent and ancient past. His generous spirit and technical brilliance cast a very bright light. Empires is luminous work.” —Elizabeth Farnsworth



"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



“Balaban juggles all of these angles with elegance and poise, without falling prey to exoticism, or orientalism, or whatever one calls it when a writer distorts another culture through the prism of his own limited, and limiting experience.” ―Prairie Schooner



“His journey suggests a moral urgency—the soldier mugged in the bus station, a legless vet in the nowhere gas station, the exiled Slavic poet tossing back vodkas in Paris—and is conveyed with wry narrative lyricism, juggling light and dark. The poems encompass both our bleakest times and the fugue of intertwining spirits, charged music we long to hear.” ―Artcetera, Nevada Arts Council



"John Balaban creates worlds within worlds in his latest collection, Empires. Each poem is enriched by cultural images that compel us to dive into their landscapes and experience unusual scenery so engaging that they become special worlds of multifaceted delights." —New York Journal of Books



“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



As featured by PBS NewsHour, "We read these 29 books in 2019. You should too."