Let's make this birthday one to remember.

81 years old (Born on December 02, 1943)

Happy birthday, John Balaban! May your day be filled with poetic peace and perhaps a delightful surprise—like another Guggenheim Fellowship sprinkled into your morning coffee. Your remarkable journey from translating souls across cultural chasms to capturing poignant reflections in "Words for My Daughter" reminds us all why you're poetry's favorite storyteller.

Here's wishing you the clarity and wit of William Carlos Williams—but perhaps skip his wheelbarrow this year; there's only so much rain-glazed poultry one poet can handle. May the coming year hold many joyful rhymes, literary triumphs, and humorous poetic pauses that make life as memorable as verse itself!