This book by renowned poet and translator Grigory Kruzhkov contains articles on three American poets: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens; they can rightly be called his lifelong companions. These poets are very different: Emily Dickinson, a provincial recluse who never saw her poems published; the celebrated Robert Frost, winner of four Pulitzer Prizes; and Wallace Stevens, the great magician and wizard who spent his entire life hiding behind the guise of an insurance clerk. These authors occupy the bulk of the book, but there's also room for other 20th-century poets: from the "transatlantic" T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden to contemporary American poets Charles Simic and Kay Ryan.

Essay writing without poetry is too dry, so the book also includes selected translations illustrating the points made in the articles.