Letters to Yesenin

Book excerpt: Sergei Yesenin was a Russian poet who, in 1925, hanged himself after writing his farewell poem in blood. Jim Harrison's "correspondence" with Yesenin is an American masterwork. In the early 1970s, Harrison was living in poverty on a hard-scrabble farm, suffering from depression and suicidal urges. He began to write daily prose-poem letters to Yesenin, confiding to his unlikely friend about sex, drunkenness, family, politics - about living for another day. Although "the rope" remained ever present, Harrison listened to his poems: "My year-old daughter's red robe hangs from the doorknob shouting Stop."