Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the towering literary figures of pre- and post-re
volutionary Russia, speaking as much to the working man (he often employed the r
ough talk of the streets and revolutionary rhetoric in his poetry) as to other p
oets (his creative fascination with sound and form, linguistic metamorphosis and
variation made him a sort of 'poet's poet', the doyen, if not the envy, of his
contemporaries, Pasternak among them). His poetry, influenced by Whitman and Ver
haeren and strangely akin to modern rock poetry in its erotic thrust, bluesy com
plaints and cries of pain, not to mention its sardonic humour, is at once aggres
sive, mocking and tender, and often fantastic or grotesque. Pro Eto - That's Wha
t is a long love poem detailing the pain and suffering inflicted on the poet by
his lover and her final rejection of him.
