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Broken Wing
Set in the remote mountains of northern Vermont, Broken Wing is an allegorical tale about a blackbird with a broken wing trapped in the inhospitable north for the winter, and an African-American man known only as The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains, who lives a solitary life of nurturing attentiveness, simple kindness, and passionate emotional intensity. This is the story of how these two lives come together, the unexpected gifts that each offers the other, and about what it is like to be an outsider in a strange place.
Exploring the themes of loneliness, survival, tenacity, and will, celebrated poet and playwright David Budbill examines the natural world around us, the wonders of birds’ lives, and one man’s deep connection to our flying friends. In simple, dignified prose that takes on the timeless, mythic aura of a folktale, Broken Wing becomes a song of praise for the cycle of the seasons and a meditation on the reality of dreams and the dreamlike quality of reality. Budbill’s lyrical storytelling effortlessly transports the reader into his realm with a rare and poetic beauty.
Exploring the themes of loneliness, survival, tenacity, and will, celebrated poet and playwright David Budbill examines the natural world around us, the wonders of birds’ lives, and one man’s deep connection to our flying friends. In simple, dignified prose that takes on the timeless, mythic aura of a folktale, Broken Wing becomes a song of praise for the cycle of the seasons and a meditation on the reality of dreams and the dreamlike quality of reality. Budbill’s lyrical storytelling effortlessly transports the reader into his realm with a rare and poetic beauty.
168 pages, Paperback
Published March 26, 2019
3 people are currently reading
1241 people want to read
About the author
David Budbill
31 books45 followersDAVID BUDBILL was born in 1940 in Cleveland, Ohio to a streetcar driver and a minister’s daughter. In 1969 he and his wife, Lois Eby, moved from New York City to Northern Vermont where they lived together for 47 years until his death in 2016. David’s colorful life included being a track star in high school, attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, teaching at Lincoln University (a historically Black college in Pennsylvania), laboring on a Christmas tree farm, playing myriad musical instruments, working for racial and economic justice, tending a large vegetable garden, cutting his own wood, riding a mountain bike, and writing a staggering amount of creative material. David had a gift with the written word, with storytelling, and with striking the heart of the matter with astonishing clarity and simplicity.
During his prolific career David authored eight books of poems, seven plays, two novels, a collection of short stories, two picture books for children, dozens of essays, and the libretto for an opera. He also served as an occasional commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His honors include an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from New England College, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. David loved to write but he also loved to perform and did so in many venues—from schools and prisons in Vermont to avant-garde performance spaces in New York City—often with bassist William Parker and other musical collaborators.
Life in rural Vermont provided much of the inspiration for David’s work, be it cutting wood, putting a vegetable garden to bed, a bird’s song, or the struggles of working folks. He was keenly attuned to the world’s suffering and had a passion for social justice, particularly issues of race and class, that infused much of his work. David lived his life to the fullest—aware of his relative privilege but determined to enjoy and savor what he had, particularly the simple things: a neatly stacked woodpile, a good meal and lively conversation, a cup of tea. He lived with incredible love for this life—for humanity and for the natural world around him.
During his prolific career David authored eight books of poems, seven plays, two novels, a collection of short stories, two picture books for children, dozens of essays, and the libretto for an opera. He also served as an occasional commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His honors include an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from New England College, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. David loved to write but he also loved to perform and did so in many venues—from schools and prisons in Vermont to avant-garde performance spaces in New York City—often with bassist William Parker and other musical collaborators.
Life in rural Vermont provided much of the inspiration for David’s work, be it cutting wood, putting a vegetable garden to bed, a bird’s song, or the struggles of working folks. He was keenly attuned to the world’s suffering and had a passion for social justice, particularly issues of race and class, that infused much of his work. David lived his life to the fullest—aware of his relative privilege but determined to enjoy and savor what he had, particularly the simple things: a neatly stacked woodpile, a good meal and lively conversation, a cup of tea. He lived with incredible love for this life—for humanity and for the natural world around him.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
December 20, 2016
You need not be a bird lover or watcher to enjoy this book, but there’s a good chance you will love both birds and life more by its end.
Broken Wing, which appeals to both young and adult readers, is set in his remote Vermont woodlands where our main figure, The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains, has settled into a hermitage of sorts after a life of playing jazz in the city. The third person narration is thinly disguised as the man himself, and we hear his voice most clearly when he writes to his longtime friend, Howard, reflecting on his own character: “What I’m talking about is why I’m so attached to Broken Wing, my rusty blackbird friend. As my bird book says: a secretive and solitary bird—they seldom occur in very large flocks, and do not, as a rule, associate with red-winged blackbirds or grackles. We are two of a kind, he and I. Both of us cast adrift on this white and foreign sea. . . . He and I are loners, and yet we’re both also more than that.”
With Thoreau-like precision David Budbill captures the details of the natural world: “And when the morning came, the cold and gray, the dank and chill of November had begun. Rapidly now, the last bit of color, the remaining pale yellows, drained away from the hillsides. Now the skeleton of the world revealed itself; the sere gray and brown of naked hardwood trees stretched their skinny fingers against the sky.” Though Budbill closes off this tale of devotion and will with a labyrinthine suggestion worthy of Jorge Luis Borges, we know that only a poet could write with such lyric precision. The simple, primitive illustrations of Vermont artist Donald Saaf provide charm and fitting character to the work.
The final chapter in Budbill’s own voice reflect on life and death and grief and survival echoing our own sense of our authors last words. “What if there is something—a land, say, a place beyond the conundrum, the mystery, to which we can go only when we accept the mystery and its confusions for what they are, and do not try to solve them: Perhaps, in that acceptance, we can gain a passport, so to speak, to that place beyond, that place The Man’s friend William calls the Tone World…which, I believe, is where all stories come from.”
This is a fine capping work to a lifetime of writing that asked the brave questions and accepted life’s deep mystery.
Broken Wing, which appeals to both young and adult readers, is set in his remote Vermont woodlands where our main figure, The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains, has settled into a hermitage of sorts after a life of playing jazz in the city. The third person narration is thinly disguised as the man himself, and we hear his voice most clearly when he writes to his longtime friend, Howard, reflecting on his own character: “What I’m talking about is why I’m so attached to Broken Wing, my rusty blackbird friend. As my bird book says: a secretive and solitary bird—they seldom occur in very large flocks, and do not, as a rule, associate with red-winged blackbirds or grackles. We are two of a kind, he and I. Both of us cast adrift on this white and foreign sea. . . . He and I are loners, and yet we’re both also more than that.”
With Thoreau-like precision David Budbill captures the details of the natural world: “And when the morning came, the cold and gray, the dank and chill of November had begun. Rapidly now, the last bit of color, the remaining pale yellows, drained away from the hillsides. Now the skeleton of the world revealed itself; the sere gray and brown of naked hardwood trees stretched their skinny fingers against the sky.” Though Budbill closes off this tale of devotion and will with a labyrinthine suggestion worthy of Jorge Luis Borges, we know that only a poet could write with such lyric precision. The simple, primitive illustrations of Vermont artist Donald Saaf provide charm and fitting character to the work.
The final chapter in Budbill’s own voice reflect on life and death and grief and survival echoing our own sense of our authors last words. “What if there is something—a land, say, a place beyond the conundrum, the mystery, to which we can go only when we accept the mystery and its confusions for what they are, and do not try to solve them: Perhaps, in that acceptance, we can gain a passport, so to speak, to that place beyond, that place The Man’s friend William calls the Tone World…which, I believe, is where all stories come from.”
This is a fine capping work to a lifetime of writing that asked the brave questions and accepted life’s deep mystery.
August 29, 2018
I haven’t been this moved by a book in a long while. Beautiful story.
January 28, 2018
A lyrical novel that sings straight to your heart
There is a man, simply known as The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains. He reads poetry, is an orchardist, and cares deeply for the birds that visit his numerous feeders all year. When an injured rusty wing blackbird shows up at his feeder at a time of year when it should have already flown south, the man does everything he can to help the bird make it through the winter. Identifying on a certain level with the bird, the struggle for survival opens a well of loneliness and pain he wasn’t able to get away from, even all the way out on a mountain.
This beautifully written story grasped me from the first words. Its lyrical prose transports the reader to the man’s cabin in the mountains, and forms a picturesque image in the mind as he goes about preparing for winter. There are some hard moments in the book that opened a wellspring of gushing tears, and moments of such calmness and serenity it feels meditative. This book fulfills the desire for when we dream of running off to a secluded cabin in the woods to live off the land. It also has a much deeper meaning in what the reader can assume from the text: a story about the struggle of African Americans to simply be who they want to be, where they want to be. Any way it is read, it is a profoundly beautiful work that goes right to the heart.
There is a man, simply known as The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains. He reads poetry, is an orchardist, and cares deeply for the birds that visit his numerous feeders all year. When an injured rusty wing blackbird shows up at his feeder at a time of year when it should have already flown south, the man does everything he can to help the bird make it through the winter. Identifying on a certain level with the bird, the struggle for survival opens a well of loneliness and pain he wasn’t able to get away from, even all the way out on a mountain.
This beautifully written story grasped me from the first words. Its lyrical prose transports the reader to the man’s cabin in the mountains, and forms a picturesque image in the mind as he goes about preparing for winter. There are some hard moments in the book that opened a wellspring of gushing tears, and moments of such calmness and serenity it feels meditative. This book fulfills the desire for when we dream of running off to a secluded cabin in the woods to live off the land. It also has a much deeper meaning in what the reader can assume from the text: a story about the struggle of African Americans to simply be who they want to be, where they want to be. Any way it is read, it is a profoundly beautiful work that goes right to the heart.
February 10, 2021
I was more familiar with Budbill's poetry. This was an interesting tale of reconstructing history of an old farmstead and peopling it with a narrator, a former owner who was a recluse and an amateur ornithologist.Short, descriptive, self-analytical, followed by Budbill's explanation of how he arrived at the story. A good by the fire read on a below zero winter's night.
I think this book becomes more relevant as we look at the implicit racism in our society. I've been involved in the environmental community for years. It is monolithicaly white. In the field of environmental education, salaries are ridiculously low. There is little to attract people dealing with major student debt to being permanently locked into entry level salaries. As environmental education expands more and more into audiences culturally and ethnically diverse, the lack of role models with whom learners can identify restricts the appeal of this important informal educational medium. And those in the field are mostly young to middle aged white women.
With more focus on the literature of BIPOC in the outdoors, perhaps we can begin to change that paradigm.
I think this book becomes more relevant as we look at the implicit racism in our society. I've been involved in the environmental community for years. It is monolithicaly white. In the field of environmental education, salaries are ridiculously low. There is little to attract people dealing with major student debt to being permanently locked into entry level salaries. As environmental education expands more and more into audiences culturally and ethnically diverse, the lack of role models with whom learners can identify restricts the appeal of this important informal educational medium. And those in the field are mostly young to middle aged white women.
With more focus on the literature of BIPOC in the outdoors, perhaps we can begin to change that paradigm.
February 9, 2017
I loved Budbill's books as a young child (
Bones on Black Spruce Mountain
and
Snowshoe Trek to Otter River
), and his final novel touches on many of the same themes -- personal identity, loneliness, death -- as those books, albeit from a more adult perspective. I approached it with a bit of hesitance, wondering if perhaps a prolonged meditation on an injured blackbird might fall flat; however, I was caught up in the story from the first page. It is well-written and well-paced, and is a beautiful, sad swan song that punctuates the sadness of his death in the fall of 2016.
August 11, 2017
Broken Wing is a delightful, mellow, thoughtful, Zen-powered little work of fiction. It is the story of a man who lives alone in the mountains and his relationship to nature and specifically a certain rusty blackbird. Much of the book felt very leisurely but the ending, which I thought was brilliant, was an absolute page turner. I won't add any spoilers but the ending changed this from a 4-star book to a 5-star book for me!
January 6, 2017
A quiet and lovely novel about a hermit whose closest companions are the birds who come to eat at his feeders and in his garden. His relationship to his surroundings, and with one injured bird in particular, is beautifully rendered.
August 18, 2017
Beautifully written book. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was that I was disappointed in the ending but it is just so beautiful that you just have to swirl the prose around on your tongue and in your mind for days after it is read.
May 6, 2017
Slow, contemplative book about a man who lives alone and a wounded bird. Not really my cup of tea, but I liked David and I liked the end of the book.
September 22, 2017
Liked the ending
June 12, 2020
This is a lovely book and a soothing read during our recent lockdown. I think it would also be a terrific read during a snowstorm.
The simplicity of the story is deceptive. A man decides to leave the city and live in the mountains, where he feeds the birds and reads poetry and thinks about music and tends his apple trees. His Eden contains an evil spirit in the form of a cat that trespasses on the man's farm. The man observes an injured bird and decides to help the bird. The man writes letters to a friend explaining the events on the mountain where he lives. The end.
The man observes everything, all the days, and ponders those observations in the evenings. His assumptions are challenged. Some of his actions have unintended consequences. Some events are beyond his control and/or influence, and the man must accept this great truth. Powerful revelations for all of us, and this is what I continue to ponder after closing this book for the last time.
The simplicity of the story is deceptive. A man decides to leave the city and live in the mountains, where he feeds the birds and reads poetry and thinks about music and tends his apple trees. His Eden contains an evil spirit in the form of a cat that trespasses on the man's farm. The man observes an injured bird and decides to help the bird. The man writes letters to a friend explaining the events on the mountain where he lives. The end.
The man observes everything, all the days, and ponders those observations in the evenings. His assumptions are challenged. Some of his actions have unintended consequences. Some events are beyond his control and/or influence, and the man must accept this great truth. Powerful revelations for all of us, and this is what I continue to ponder after closing this book for the last time.
December 13, 2018
Broken Wing.....the story of a hermit living on and within a remote mountain. He lives for poetry and birds and nature. We are introduced to the life he once had in the city....and to the life he escaped to. So much symbolism. Beautiful and poetic. Raw and deep. Such a short read yet it felt like I was engrossed in a wonderful tome. Lyrical, atmospheric and unique. Complex in what the story makes the reader feel...about an uncomplicated life that has nothing to do with social media, with technology, with people.....unattached to the world...surrounded by the world as it pertains to nature and the beauty and danger of it.
Wonderful, contemplative read!!
Thanks to goodreads, to Author David Budbill and to Beyond Words for my free copy of this book won via giveaway. I received. I read. I reviewed this book honestly and voluntarily.
Wonderful, contemplative read!!
Thanks to goodreads, to Author David Budbill and to Beyond Words for my free copy of this book won via giveaway. I received. I read. I reviewed this book honestly and voluntarily.
December 21, 2025
This was a softly spoken book.
It follows "The Man who lives alone in the Mountains" as he goes about life on his small farm/orchard, when he spots a bird with a damaged wing. He calls the bird "Broken Wing".
I liked this. It's filled with simple but beautiful prose about the everyday life that we sometimes fail to notice. We get the Man's thoughts and ideas and we watch as he comes to realize the consequences of small actions that, while may well intentioned, have a way of backfiring.
It's a small and simple reflection on our lives and how we go about them. There are references to wonderful works of poetry, the Man is an avid reader of poetry, that lend weight to these small reflections.
If you're looking for something that will make you smile and maybe cry a little, this is worth the time to read.
It follows "The Man who lives alone in the Mountains" as he goes about life on his small farm/orchard, when he spots a bird with a damaged wing. He calls the bird "Broken Wing".
I liked this. It's filled with simple but beautiful prose about the everyday life that we sometimes fail to notice. We get the Man's thoughts and ideas and we watch as he comes to realize the consequences of small actions that, while may well intentioned, have a way of backfiring.
It's a small and simple reflection on our lives and how we go about them. There are references to wonderful works of poetry, the Man is an avid reader of poetry, that lend weight to these small reflections.
If you're looking for something that will make you smile and maybe cry a little, this is worth the time to read.
January 13, 2017
David Budbill is the poet who most speaks to my soul. Broken Wing is prose but with Budbill all is poetry. His simplicity and clarity led me deep into what he calls the "Tone World" which is a phrase from musician William Parker. We are blessed that Budbill left us with this gem before he passed.
November 16, 2017
simple, moving, uncomplicated but complex... a brief tale about a story about a possible life, maybe... i loved all the information and descriptions of the birds, really wonderful... the author obviously loves and respects nature, and human life... a book that encourages you to think, and feel, and dream...
November 30, 2020
This is an interesting little read about birds and people. Is it a dream or was it just a story or was it real? Don't care! I loved the discussion of the birds and garden in the different seasons. It felt good, and these days, that is all that matters. Feed the birds, enjoy what the day brings, tend to your garden, stoke your fire, and drink your tea. All good!
April 14, 2019
As a person who loves to watch birds as they come and go, I found many parts of this story engaging. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book. When the "dream" was revealed I found myself disengaging from the story.
May 4, 2019
Broken Wing is a tale of two recluses dug into a New England mountain. One has chosen a solitary life, the other because of an injury cannot migrate.
This lovely novella or fable is quiet and one dials into the pace of quiet lives as the book progresses.
A gem. A national treasure.
This lovely novella or fable is quiet and one dials into the pace of quiet lives as the book progresses.
A gem. A national treasure.
January 16, 2021
I doubt I'll read a more engaging, beautiful book this year.
January 28, 2022
Take the road north,
Farther and farther north.
Go up through the valley,
Between the mountain ranges,
Up to where the West Running River
And the River Road go west. . . .
Farther and farther north.
Go up through the valley,
Between the mountain ranges,
Up to where the West Running River
And the River Road go west. . . .
February 28, 2022
Another amazing read from the pen of David Budbill.
December 30, 2023
I loved this book. So refreshing to read something so filled with nature, poignancy, spiritual and thoughtful. So worth reading.
January 25, 2024
This is a beautiful book from beginning to end. It embraces peace, tranquility, nature, lonliness, happiness, music, and life. You can't help but feel good after reading this book.
May 19, 2025
A lovely book, simple in form but complex in meaning.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews