Rate My Professor John Balaban

John Balaban serves as Emeritus Poet-in-Residence and Professor of English at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He holds an A.M. degree in Early English Literature from Harvard University, obtained in 1967. Throughout his career spanning nearly 45 years as a professor of English at various institutions, including 15 years at NC State until his retirement in 2016, Balaban has been a prolific author of twelve books of poetry and prose. His works often draw from his experiences during the Vietnam War, where he first traveled in 1967 as a conscientious objector, teaching linguistics and aiding war-injured children. In 1971-72, supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, he recorded Vietnamese oral folk poetry known as ca dao in the countryside, leading to publications such as Ca Dao Vietnam: Vietnamese Folk Poetry (1980, revised 2003).

Balaban's scholarly contributions include translating and editing works like Spring Essence: The Poetry of Hồ Xuân Hương (2000), the first book featuring the ancient Nôm script printed from a modern press. In 1999, he founded the Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation, where he has served as president, developing digital tools for Nôm preservation, digitizing thousands of texts, and earning recognition including a medal from the Vietnam Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. His poetry collections have garnered prestigious honors: After Our War (1974) won the Academy of American Poets’ Lamont Prize and was nominated for the National Book Award; Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New and Selected Poems (1997) received the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and another National Book Award nomination; he was also a 2003 Guggenheim Fellow and Phi Kappa Phi National Artist (2001-2004). In 2017, Balaban received the George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Additionally, he directed NC State’s MFA Program in Creative Writing and served as past president of the American Literary Translators Association. His efforts have profoundly influenced the revival and global appreciation of Vietnamese literary heritage.