Fotografía de autor

David K. Leff

Autor de The Last Undiscovered Place

12 Obras 51 Miembros 2 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

David K. Leff, author of numerous essays and stories for the Hartford Courant and other periodicals, is Deputy Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. He has served as chairman of the Collinsville Historic District Commission and as a volunteer firefighter, among other mostrar más civic activities mostrar menos

Obras de David K. Leff

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Miembros

Reseñas

David K. Leff did it all. He was a naturalist. Historian. Fire fighter. POET.

In his final volume, published posthumously, he cries out for us to pay attention to our world and what we are doing to it. He did not live to see our environment destroyed, but certainly our grandchildren may.

David's voice is one of warning, but it's because he was so in tune with nature that he's cautioning us to take care, to be aware.

I had the pleasure of reading poetry with David at various venues around Connecticut. Each time I read a poem from this book, I hear his voice. You may not be able to hear his voice, but if you quiet the own cacophony in your head and allow yourself to listen, these poems will speak to you, too.

"In the woods and air you will find me / among hepatica's delicate pink / abloom in a last snow; and as fiddleheads / unwind beside nodding bells of trout / lily and feathery leaves of squirrel corn. / I'll be there, always, to refresh your spirit."
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Denunciada
DonnaMarieMerritt | Oct 30, 2022 |
Deep Travel (2009) is a slow and reflective travel book full of historical anecdotes, musings about the geography, architecture, industry, and everything that makes up the landscape along the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. David K. Leff lives in Massachusetts and kayaked the rivers over a number of trips. He follows in the wake of others who did the same, most famously Henry David Thoreau who wrote about it in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). Leff has written more than just a travel book, he is defining a genre which he calls "Deep Travel". It's something we have all done but probably don't have a name for. Deep Travel is to go about the local world and consider its history and place, to let the geography and environment direct the flow of attention. To seek out the novel, the hidden, the forgotten - to ask questions about those things in plain sight overlooked by everyone else. Like in a daydream, to wander slowly and deliberately, to wonder consciously about those things that make up the backdrop of the everyday.

This is an unusual travel book, yet wonderful in its vision. I've never been to the places it describes - the rivers and old industrial towns, mills and canals - but I feel I have now traveled there in person. The everyday and ordinary have been made interesting and fresh, layer upon layer of detail filled out to form a whole. It's a concept that works, but is also appropriate in a world where traveling to the far reaches to find the unusual is having negative consequences on the environment. In this book we learn local travel can be as interesting as the far away. Leff can also be seen as part of what I call a neo-transcendentalism movement that seems to be appearing in New England, a quest for the authentic America through the deliberate mimicry of the styles of Thoreau, Emerson and others; the latest Pulitzer Prize winning novel Tinkers is another example.

Even though this is a regional American work, it's worth reading by anyone for a number of reasons. It will appeal obviously to anyone who lives in the region to learn more about their own backyard. It will appeal to those who have never been there to get a better sense of a place they may never see, or a deeper understanding of a place they may have only passed through briefly. It's a genre defining book that introduces the idea of traveling slowly, deeply, locally. As Leff says, "Exploring a place close to home can teach us as much as the farthest reaches of the globe. Travel is best that inspires us to see anew and become more engaged with our native landscape. It enriches our lives and motivates us to protect nearby areas."

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2010 cc-by-nd
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Denunciada
Stbalbach | Apr 17, 2010 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
12
Miembros
51
Popularidad
#311,767
Valoración
½ 4.5
Reseñas
2
ISBNs
18

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