This edition includes poems and verses by Vladimir Mayakovsky, an outstanding poet of the 20th century and one of the leaders of the Russian avant-garde. Mayakovsky, who 'equated the pen with the bayonet,' became the voice of the revolution and a symbol of the Soviet era. Tsvetaeva called him 'the world's first poet of the masses... the first Russian poet-orator.' And, like any great poet, he outgrew his time: Mayakovsky's work, no matter how controversial it may be today, is sought after by new generations of readers, and his life in art has proven long.