by Elizabeth R. McCarthy
This month’s Sunday Afternoon Poetry at the Jaquith featured Nadine Budbill reading from the new and revised edition of Judevine: a Love Song for a Place and Its People. Those of us who made the decision to spend maybe the first warm and sunny afternoon of spring inside were richly rewarded by Nadine Budbill’s readings of her father’s work.
She brought life to the characters that live in Judevine: Bill, Anson, Antione, and Arnie, “always emaciated and dirty” rural poor and “wretched,” yet like all of his characters, they are survivors in a changing world. Nadine shared personal stories of her father; how and why he moved to Wolcott, Vermont in 1970 [to write in his own way and avoid the life of academia.] A special treat was when Nadine introduced her mother Lois Eby, who provided additional details of the people they knew and life as writer and artist in the hills of northern Vermont.
This recent edition of Judevine, which was published by Rootstock Publishing (April 2025) starts with pages of praise for Judevine by renowned literary journals and poets of his generation; Grace Paley, Hayden Carruth, Donald Hall, Howard Frank Mosher, poets who knew the people and places David Budbill wrote of with honesty and love. When I read the dedication page, I was struck with emotion, having known Renzo in a weird virtual way.
“In memory of Scott “Renzo” Renzoni (1971 – 2025) —actor, poet, and Judevine fan extraordinaire— who we tragically lost during work on this new edition.”
Weird might not be the right word, but I find that making friends online and never meeting them in real life is kind of weird since the feelings of friendship are no less palpable when they are instantly lost. I became virtual friends with Renzo when we were asked to be the moderators of the Billy Collins’s fan Facebook Group, The Cool People, The Night People. His passion for poetry was “extraordinary” as was his humor and kindness. I found it no surprise to see that Billy Collins had written the “Introduction” to this edition of Judevine. I believe Billy had become an equal fan of Renzo who carried the voice of Budbill and the characters of Judevine as if it were a well loved photo in his wallet that he took out and proudly showed whenever he could.
To hear more of Budbill’s writing don’t miss, Celebrating the Poetry of David Budbill at the Highland Center for the Arts on Sunday, July 19 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
