David Budbill (1940-2016) is the author of eight books of poems, seven plays, two novels, a collection of short stories, a picture book for children, the libretto for an opera, and dozens of essays. David was the first person in his family to graduate from high school and was keenly attuned to issues of social, racial, and economic justice. He performed his work in many venues—from schools and prisons in Vermont to performance spaces in New York City—often with William Parker and other musical collaborators. He lived a humble, engaged, and passionate life in the mountains of Northern Vermont for almost 50 years.
“David Budbill’s . . . poetry is as accessible as a parking lot and as plain as a pair of Levis. [These poems are] a labor of love not in the usual sense that the artist can be seen to love the labor he performs but because he can be seen to love the place and the people he’s writing about.” –Thomas Disch, Parnassus
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Budbill’s poems are prosaically straightforward and easy to read, but they have the rhythmic life of the best of Jeffers and are as large-souled and democratic as Whitman.” – Ray Olson, Booklist
Critics' Acclaim
“One of the most readable American poets ever.” –Booklist
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“Budbill both informs and moves and he is, in short, a delight and a comfort.” –Wendell Berry
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"David, to me, is soul music. His work is a reminder of the joy we can pursue, the gifts we have...it was his persona, the depth and breadth of his work, and his honoring of humanity. I think about Jack Kerouac's epitaph, "He honored life"––that is so true of David and his work." –Reuben Jackson​
“Budbill is a poet, I might say a musician, after my own heart. Without ever resorting to established forms or the least contrivance, he uses tones, textures, and melodic, harmonic, and echoic elements as a musician would, and his work is a delight to read, invariably. What strikes me most about David Budbill is the intensity of his commitment, not simply to poetry, but to the human need from which poetry – if it is real poetry – has always risen. –Hayden Carruth
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“Budbill [writes] with rare honesty, affection, and grace—and with language so precise and descriptive you will know immediately you're soul-deep in something extraordinary." –Los Angeles Daily News​​
What Issa Heard
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Two hundred years ago Issa heard the morning birds
singing sutras to this suffering world.
I heard them too, this morning, which must mean,
since we will always have a suffering world,
we must also always have a song.
-From Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse, Copper Canyon Press, 1999.
Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press.
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Listen to Erik Neilson (composer and long-time collaborator of David's) sing this poem: