John Balaban (b. 1943) is the author of twelve books of poetry and prose. He has won several awards, including the Lamont Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, a National Poetry Series Selection, and, for Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New and Selected Poems, the 1998 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. He was named the 2001–2004 National Artist for the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. In 2003, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. He has also been nominated twice for the National Book Award. In addition to writing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, Balaban translates Vietnamese poetry; he is also a past president of the American Literary Translators Association. Balaban is a poet-in-residence and English professor in the creative writing program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.