Passing through a Gate: Poems, Essays, and Translations

by John Balaban

Overview

An essential collection of poetry and prose from an award-winning poet who faced some of the greatest dramas of his time in American history.

John Balaban is an extraordinary writer and storyteller whose prize-winning poetry and prose are informed by a love of languages, deep scholarship, hard travel, and a willingness to confront the violence and sufferings of the world. In this essential collection of his work, the best of his prize-winning poems since 1970 are collected in one place, threaded through with essays that link poetry to Balaban’s extensive travels, whether hitchhiking throughout the United States or wandering the countryside of Vietnam—during wartime—to record and translate folk poetry. 

The result is a remarkable story about a life in poetry. Empathetic, truth-telling, and fiercely perceptive, Passing through a Gate is a literary tour de force. As Maxine Kumin reminds us, “Balaban seems to me our moral spokesperson, our lyricist, our polemicist, exhorter, and consoler: in short, the poet we need.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556596919
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	05/28/2024
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

John Balaban (he/him) is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, including four volumes which together have won The Academy of American Poets’ James Laughlin Award, a National Poetry Series selection, and two nominations for the National Book Award. His collection Words for My Daughter was a National Poetry Series Selection in 1990, and his book Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New and Selected Poems won the 1998 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. In 2006, his Path, Crooked Path was an Editor’s Choice at Booklist, and listed in Best of Poetry by Library Journal. In addition to his poetry, he is the author of a celebrated memoir, a children's novel, essays, and translations from Vietnamese, Bulgarian, and Romanian.

Read an Excerpt

Hitch-Hiking and Listening to My CB Walkie-Talkie 

In Questa, Chicanos shot four Anglo bikers. 

Roared in on Harleys; rolled out under sheets. 

In Boulder, an Indian buck-knifed a bartender. 

Zigged, I guess, when he should've zagged. 

At Rock Springs, my CB buzzed with double trouble; 

On Friday, a cop at Green River wasted a narc. 

Next night, at the Teddy Bear Inn, some girl 

shot a guy through his nose.  Oh, why, am I in Wyoming? 

At dawn in Salt Lake City, I heard swallows 

chittering below a bridge as light washed the Big Dipper. 

And then ol' Captain Coors was honking with that Sugarlips 

about the cabbie blown away by his fare. 

Outside of Reno, I was riding in a big Peterbilt 

when the trucker waved a snubnose at my head. 

Just to let me know, you know.  He didn't shoot. 

But it makes you wonder about the living and the dead. 

Late at night, when radio waves skip across States, 

you can hear ricochets from Maine to L.A. 

Spring-Watching Pavillion 

translated from the Nôm

A gentle spring evening arrives 

airily, unclouded by worldly dust. 

Three times the bell tolls echoes like a wave. 

We see heaven upside down in sad puddles. 

Love's vast sea cannot be emptied. 

And springs of grace flow easily everywhere. 

Where is nirvana? 

Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten. 

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Passing through a Gate

“Throughout Balaban’s distinguished career as poet, essayist, and translator, he’s chronicled complex events. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, and the tragedies of that era run throughout his work. Balaban's essays chart the wanderings of an inquisitive soul. . . . Along with his own splendid poems, works shaped by a spiritual inquisitiveness, relationships with others, and thoughts of one’s fragile mortality, Balaban’s enlightening translations of Vietnamese folk poetry are also included, among them his highly praised translations of Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1822), whose works shine. . . . Itself full of grace, this is a unique and affecting collection.”—Raúl Niño, Booklist

“In his new selection of poems, essays, and translations, John Balaban leads us through many gates, from the grounds of a temple in Vietnam to a Pueblo spirit gate, from the goddess-inhabited Acropolis to the merely functional gate of an isolated ranch which he slipped through in order to wander, lost, for hours in the high desert of New Mexico. It is a long road through time as well as space.”—Susanna Lang, Rhino Poetry

“I first encountered Balaban's poetry when Jan Barry and I were co-editing Demilitarized Zones: Veterans After Vietnam in 1975. We used a handful of his poems in that anthology, and I have remained a fan and admirer of his writing ever since.”—The Veteran

“A poet’s life from Vietnam to NC State, told through stories and songs and scars.”―Josh Shaffer, News & Observer

Praise for John Balaban

“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.”—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

From the Publisher