Park Songs
Barking Dog
January 1, 2003
After the Haiku of Yosa Buson
January 1, 2005
PARK SONGS
A poem/play
with photographs by R. C. Irwin
(Exterminating Angel Press, 2012)
A “tale of the tribe” (Ezra Pound’s phrase for his own longer work), Park Songs is set in a down-and-out Midwestern park where people from all walks of life gather. In this small green space surrounded by a great gray city, the park provides a refuge for its caretaker (and resident poet), street preachers, retirees, moms, hustlers, and teenagers. Interspersed with blues songs, the community speaks through poetic monologues and conversations, while the homeless provide the introductory chorus—their collective voices becoming an epic tale of comedy and tragedy.
Full of hard-won wisdom, unexpected humor, righteous (if occasionally misplaced) anger, and sly tenderness, their stories show us how people learn to live with mistakes and make connections in an antisocial world. As the poem/play engages us in their pain and joy—and the goofy delight of being human—it makes a quietly soulful statement about desire, acceptance, and community in our lives.
What critics are saying about PARK SONGS
“Park Songs opens up the intersections of poetry and performance . . . the plainness of the language is deceptive, [this] rhythmic and vernacular play [is] surprisingly evocative.”
– RAIN TAXI, Spring 2013, Lynette Reini-Grindell
(for complete review go to: http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2013spring/budbill.php)
“Best known for clear, sweet poems, [Budbill] is also a playwright, and his new work is first and last, as he says, ‘raw material that could be a play’: an array of dialogues among the vagrants, pedestrians, passers-by, and hard-luck cases of an urban park. . . . In language that recalls the 1930s, the guys and the couple of ladies around the park debate how to be happy, how to get by with less, and how to make poems that feel true.”
– PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, October 22, 2012
(for complete review go to: http://www.publishersweekly.com/)
“Budbill’s latest collection, Park Songs, demonstrat[es] that he is above all a poet of place . . . [and of] the power of place to mark us, hold us, and bind us to one another . . . The language here is so familiar and conversational, its simplicity detains the reader, inviting us to consider the poetry of everyday speech. . . He ingeniously borrows the authority of the playwright to get away with speaking in a grittier and more guttural register. . . .”
– Abby Paige, THE BAKERY, December 11, 2012
(for complete review go to: http://www.thebakerypoetry.com/submissions/)
“Budbill captures the essence of human communication – the misunderstandings and connections, hurts and expectations.”
– Deb Baker, CONCORD MONITOR, Concord, New Hampshire, September 9, 2012
“David Budbill is a poet and playwright known for his accessibility and sense of playful humor. . . . The soliloquies and verbal interactions, presented in the course of one day [in this urban park], provide insight into the variety of personalities at work and force readers to reflect on how much we can know—and learn—through our discussions. Also at issue is how much can be misunderstood.”
– FOREWORD, Jennifer Fandell, September 2012
(for complete review go to: https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/park-songs/)
“[An] ultra-American twist on Beckettian terseness . . . Park Songs is full of idiomatic vernacular and candid, imperfect syntax, which contribute to a down-to-earth plainspokenness. These seem like people we can connect with, and it’s refreshing (as Budbill’s work generally is) to be offered regular ol’ simple beauty in place of incomprehensible, postmodern mumbo-jumbo.”
– Keenan Walsh, SEVEN DAYS, October 17, 2012
(for complete review go to: http://www.7dvt.com/2012walk-park)
“[PARK SONGS is a] beautiful, tragic-funny book. . . David Budbill’s writing is not just art, it’s a philosophical call to arms for readers to wake up to the world, to go ahead and risk feeling both the pain and the pleasure of being awake. Park Songs is an entertaining read and also one to make you think. It stayed with me and I can feel it connecting with other things I’ve read, helping me live with more heart, helping me notice things.”
– Deb Baker, BOOKCONSCIOUS, August 31, 2012
“I adored this exploration of community and personalities, as well as levels of sanity and security. Budbill was able to crisply portray various voices, and the spin of characters in and out of the spotlight . . .”
– HippieLunatic, librarything.com, Sep 8, 2012
(for complete review go to: http://www.librarything.com/work/12863921/reviews)
“Budbill takes the reader to an open space in a city where denizens of a park meet, greet, muse, confuse, reach out and step away. Budbill’s characters speak to all of us. . . Kudos to Budbill for choosing a city park – the great meeting ground of rich and poor, different races, different politics, and different lifestyles – to highlight human needs, foibles, and concerns. . . . PARK SONGS will speak on even after the closing scene.”
– IsolaBlue, librarything.com, Sep 16, 2012
(for complete review go to: http://www.librarything.com/work/12863921/reviews)