Bang has been an acclaimed poet since the success of her first collection, Apology for Want, in 1997. She has a reputation as an intellectual poet who asks major philosophical questions about art and existence, but her lively poetry has a popular appeal as well. The Eye like a Strange Balloon was reviewed positively in publications such as Booklist and Publishers Weekly; in the former, Donna Seaman finds Bang particularly praiseworthy, writing that her fourth collection “is especially commanding in its metaphysical puzzles, tart irony, antic yet adamantly channeled energy, and devil-may-care poise.” Michael Scharf, meanwhile, discusses what he considers the collection's central theme in his Publishers Weekly review, arguing that Bang's poems “search relentlessly for the meaning of—and the reason for—art in our contemporary world.” Although it has received little individual critical attention, “Allegory” is one of the noteworthy poems of the collection, having...