Washtenaw County Jail and Other Writings

About the Book

WASHTENAW COUNTY JAIL and Other Writings is first and foremost a gritty prison journal by the young poet David Herfort, who served time for drugs as a college student at the University of Michigan in the turbulent early 1970s. It is also a delicate poetry collection, The Poems of Horatio Pepper, and the poignant European journal and letters of an American hitchhiker who was killed in a car accident in Spain in November 1972. The book was edited 30 years after Herfort’s death by his half-brother, the poet Michael Ruby.

About the Author

DAVID HERFORT was born in 1950 in New York City and grew up in its suburbs. He wrote Washtenaw County Jail during his junior year at the University of Michigan, while serving time for drugs, and The Poems of Horatio Pepper after his release. He was killed in a car accident in Spain in November 1972. MICHAEL RUBY, his half-brother, is a journalist and poet. His first book of poetry, At an Intersection, was published by Alef Books in 2002. He works for The Wall Street Journal and lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn.