David Leff

David Leff is an author, poet, and lecturer.  He is active hunter, canoeist, and volunteer fireman from village of Collinsville, CT.  David retired as the Deputy Commissioner of the State of Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection.  Where he lead the department with most of it natural resource programs.  David currently sits on several boards including Audubon Connecticut and Connecticut Forest and Park Association.

Winter became a character in the literature that David read to us.  The night was alive with laughter and we marveled at the words used by such authors as Hal Borland, Edith Wharton, Robert Service.  None of us had heard of Rolvaag before David read an excerpt from Giants in the Earth but I am sure several of us will be borrowing a copy of it from our local libraries soon!  We left wanting more but our time had come to end for the evening.  We had just enough time to have a quick night walk before we shared a bedtime treat and went to bed in the museum among the exhibits.

David read from the following works:

1. Aldo Leopold, “January,” from A Sand County Almanac
2. Robert Frost, “Dust of Snow” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
3. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Snowstorm”
4. John Haines, excerpt from “Ice,” from Stories We Listened To
5. Hal Borland, “Ice Flowers, January 14” from Sundial of the Seasons
6. James Russell Lowell, excerpt from “A Good Word for Winter”
7. John Muir, excerpt from “The Snow,” from The Mountains of California
8. Edith Wharton, excerpt from Ethan Frome
9. O.E. Rolvaag, excerpt from Book II, V, Giants in the Earth
10. Jack London, excerpt from “In a Far Country”
11. Cathie Pelletier, excerpt from “The Gifford’s Glissade into Winter,” from The Weight of Winter
12. John Greenleaf Whittier, excerpt from Snowbound
13. Robert W. Service, “Cremation of Sam McGee”
14. H.D. Thoreau, Journal, February 2, 1860
15. Wallace Stevens “The Snow Man”
16. Donald Hall, “Midwinter Letter”
17. David K. Leff, “Glass House”
18. Diana Kapel-Smith, excerpt from “Zero,” from Wintering*
19. Gladys Taber, excerpt from “January” and from “February,” from The Book of Stillmeadow*
20. Joseph Wood Krutch, excerpt from “January,” from The Twelve Seasons*
21. Edwin Way Teale, excerpt from “White Winter,” from A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm

* Selected, but not read due to time constraints