David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Historical Whiplash: Tales of Two Buildings

Reimagining the Past
Historical whiplash! You might just be a victim stepping over the threshold at 144 Albany Turnpike in Canton, Connecticut, my hometown. The structure is a clapboard, center chimney classic built when Thomas Jefferson was president. It sits close to a four-lane blacktop, a commercial strip of twenty-first century clamoring signs and chaos. Step inside to the 1950s, a world of Life magazine, Elvis, and big cars with tail fins. Welcome to Dish’n Dat, a restaurant with an Eisenhower era diner feel, and the mouth-watering comfort food to go with it.

But the way things look is only the beginning. Like any historic structure, it is chockful of stories. A private residence for generations, it began life as a public place when it opened as an in-home tea room in the 1920s. By 1950, in was a full-service bar and restaurant. Soon after, a dead body was discovered nearby. A few decades passed, and the was subject to a lawsuit by an international rock star. By the end of the twentieth century, it would host a series of restaurants offering Mexican, Asian and other exotic fare that would have astounded the original homeowners who cooked over the old fireplace. Who knows what else the walls could tell us?

Poets Out in the Open: Readings in Woods & Fields

Join me and Connecticut Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson as we read poems of nature and the environment in fields, under trees, in a garden, and along a river at the beautiful White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield Connecticut.  Plein-air readings of works composed indoors but inspired by nature.  Let the words float on the breeze!

View the readings here 

Thanks to Gerri Griswold for hosting and the fabulous photo.  Kudos to David Bibbey, poet laureate of Woodbury, CT for the filming, editing and producing the brilliant video.

Encountering van Gogh (poem)

Focused track-lights on off-white walls
turn to swirling vertigo
near blinding bright landscapes.
Falling into a canvas,
I’m a character wading in electric
blue and yellow, swimming an ocean
of swirling liquid brushwork
at the dubious confluence
of imagination and reality.
Confused, disoriented, seeking
escape on the ragged edge of despair,
I’m suddenly back in the gallery,
breathing heavily but unharmed.

Warily glancing again at the painting,
I nervously watch it leaking
into the room until all is a dense fog
of plugged-in color.
I’m engulfed in dizzying hues
and indistinct but discernible forms
as the artist was embraced by madness,
and hear the colors screeching,
smell the earth-sense
of whirling, eddying brushstrokes.

Several deep breaths of van Gogh,
at once sweet and savory,
cause heat, pressure, my heart
about to explode with pained joy.
“I’ve entered your painting
so you can rest in my poem,”
I shriek. Instantly back in the museum,
the work hangs in curated
order while visitors move from frame
to frame like bees sampling nectar
in flower after flower.

"Orchard Bordered by Cypresses," Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery

Small Wonders, Big Stories: Little Free Libraries

Serendipitous portals to far places and new ideas, Little Free Libraries are popping up like mushrooms in late summer. I never know where I’ll find one or where it will take me.  
These book exchanges have been planted on street corners, in front yards and public parks, near the entrance to stores and restaurants, at shopping centers, beaches, schools, playgrounds, rail and bus stations, along bike and walking trails, and wherever people might be tempted by stories or learning something new. A field guide to butterflies, a collection of poems by Robert Burns, and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code novel have been among my finds.

The concept is simple: small kiosks where you can find books to read, and leave some to share with others. Beyond providing a 24-7 source of reading material, Little Free Libraries are said to promote literacy, neighborly conversation, creativity and community revitalization. The number, design, and location of these book-containers makes a statement about a town, and I look for them wherever I go. Little Free Libraries suggest that people in the area care for more than facades. Finding them an irresistible attraction, I decided to establish one in my hometown.