Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the towering literary figures of pre- and post-revolutionary Russia, speaking as much to the working man (he often employed the rough talk of the streets and revolutionary rhetoric in his poetry) as to other poets (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 Verhaeren and strangely akin to modern rock poetry in its erotic thrust, bluesy complaints and cries of pain, not to...

This groundbreaking collection draws together for the first time Vladimir Mayakovsky s key translators from the 1930s to the present day, bringing some remarkable works back into print in the process and introducing poems which have never before been translated. The radical scope of its representation makes for the most comprehensive account of Mayakovsky s work to date an account which charts not only the extraordinary range of his creative output, but also the fascinating and turbulent history of Mayakovsky s cultural and political representation in the western world."

Womack gives us an essential Mayakovsky: 'A Cloud In Trousers', 'I Love', a film scenario, a play, agit-prop, love poetry, public and private verse. The great poet of the Soviet era remains a great enigma.