Before the 19th century, the Greek word stasis meant sedition. The word revolution did not exist. Exploring the roots of everything he saw around him, James Leaf invites us to consider the origin of art, the uses of conversation, the meaning of solidarity, and the plurality of the self. Beyond the moral passion of dramas he directed, even at his lowest moments, Leaf records feeling “the germ of some stubborn genius.”
"I hesitate to call contemporary artists visionaries, but in the case of James Munro Leaf, the term applies. A Revolution of One is the work of a far-seeing and fierce imagination. It's a collection to reread at three in the morning, and to bring with you to the barricades. These poems and prose selections pulse with deep fellow-feeling and quicksilver comedy; they examine our present moment (full of 'anarchic kindness' and 'neon nightmares') while conjuring heroes from the past: Orwell, Beethoven, Joan of Arc. 'We are a we and we are splendid,' Leaf writes. What a gift, what generosity, to be reminded of that. I’m larger in spirit for having read this work. You will be, too."
"James Munro Leaf’s A Revolution of One introduces readers to a powerful and truly distinctive
voice in American poetics—an intense, mesmerizing collection that plumbs the depths of history
and emotion in waves of literary force. Readers will wonder what the author might have
accomplished had his life not been cut short but will also marvel at how much he achieved in the
time he did sojourn among us mortals. Jagged, passionate, and original."
"James Leaf was an extraordinary writer, whose deft skills are almost superseded by his ability to
lay his soul bare on the page. For his readers, it’s such a gift to find a world where savvy
observations comingle with wit, where the kind of love that breaks your heart can give way to a
slice of cynicism, and where life’s endless ambiguities are tackled head-on. With James Leaf,
there is bravery, there is beauty, and every page urges us on to the next."
"A Revolution of One is a haunting cry from the barricades, from the bowels of Bellevue to the
streets of Paris and New York, by a brave and gifted young artist. James Munro Leaf fiercely
wars against his mental illness and the injustices of the world with defiance, grace, compassion,
and love in prose and poetry as searing as his pain."
James Leaf
The late James Leaf, a New York director, actor, and writer, was born in Boston and spent his early life in Altadena, CA before moving to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Majoring in Theater, he graduated from Harvard College in 2010. He founded New Haven’s Young Mechanics Theatre Ensemble, dedicated to bringing politically relevant theatre to a stratified city, and directed productions by Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee and Clifford Odets alongside new work by local playwrights. With Luisa Muhr he founded FENGARI, a New-York-based Performing Arts company. He staged the world-premiere of COCKPIT (formerly The Specials) by Steve Bellwood, acted at Long Wharf, and directed Wedding of the Waters and Albright at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox. He guest-lectured for four years at Barnard College and worked as a theatre instructor at University of Michigan, Amherst and Harvard Colleges, Simon Studio, and Elm Shakespeare Company. His short story “Team Wristband,” posthumously published in 2019 by Michigan Quarterly Review, was adapted for stage and film by Gillian Eaton and Andy Kirshner.
“In this lovingly curated ‘raw document of found work,’ James Munro Leaf, its bravely suffering young author, gives us a chronicle of his bipolar disease while proclaiming, ‘I said for years this wasn’t a disease/That it was some form of ontological dissent,’ while also acknowledging, ‘I don’t want this curse anymore.’
His startlingly prophetic voice is off and in the moment while simultaneously revealing a projected future. Inside this duality, a hungry intellect and fierce spirit describe, for himself and for those on the outside, where he sees things heading. On the first election of Trump – ‘the troll king’ – he writes a poem of solidarity with the sad Brooklyn girls and the original fighting suffragettes. He writes this in November of 2016, a year before his suicide at age 32, but his high school notebook shows that he had already asked about Germany and the rise of Hitler, ‘How did such evil arise from such peace and diversity?’ As dedicated an artist as he is, he sees art as a secondary concern to direct political action.
And yet, his love poems are pure yearning. His respectful compassion for his fellow patients is healing. (‘I have faith in this terrible place. And I love those lashed alongside me. There is a way.’) His experience in the theatre is passionately clarifying. He writes, ‘Art, I believe, is an incredible byproduct of that struggle to possess personal freedom every day and live without fear… [T]he theater holds out an urgently needed form of healing that emboldens us to look with fresh eyes and feel with fresh hearts… We are here to facilitate a process whereby our audiences may discover fresh reservoirs of imagination and courage already within themselves.’
In ‘An Email to the Artists Support Collective,’ a year before taking his life, he wrote, ‘What matters is the daily struggle not to fall into isolation, alienation, haughtiness, recklessness, pride or despair. And if we can do that we may be able to help or even stand up and fight for other people who may need our help. The daily struggle is to offer succor to one another as human beings, and to do the right thing, the courageous thing, however we can.’
This essential lesson has become the legacy of James Munro Leaf. Let him be our guide.”
~Alexandra Marshall, Author of The Silence of Your Name: The Afterlife of a Suicide