A "tale of the tribe" (Ezra Pound's phrase for his own longer work), Park Songs is set during a single day in a down-and-out Midwestern city park where people from all walks of life gather. In this small green space amidst 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--and all of their voices become one great epic tale of comedy and...

"Budbill both informs and moves. He is, in short, a delight and a comfort." Wendell Berry

"David Budbill is a no-nonsense, free-range sage." Dana Jennings, The New York Times

"Looking at the reality closely, he sees parts move in a unisonsometimes graceless, sometimes ugly, always resolved in a human wholeness." Donald Hall

"David Budbill's . . . poetry is as accessible as a parking lot and as plain as a pair of Levis." Parnassus

Appearing frequently on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, David Budbill's poems are deceptively simple...