The Worker Poet

 

Mayakovsky- A Poet in the Revolution

Edward J. Brown

Princeton University Press

Princeton, N.J., 1973

 



 

"The body of Mayakovsky's work might be usefully investigated as an 'encyclopedia' of Russian life in the early twentieth century and as an auxiliary guide to the history of the Soviet period."

"The study of his poetry is in a sense an investigation of the poet's mind itself, of the ways it experiences the world and how it gives form and expression to that experience."

                                                           -from Introductory Remarks

　

"How do you dare call yourself a poet

and gaily chirrup like a quail

Today

you must

use brass knuckles

and cut yourself into the world's skull"

                                                      -Mayakovsky