MAYAKOVSKY, Vladimir.

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Vo Ves' Golos (At the Top of One's Voice). Second and preferred edition due to the striking photographic illustrations on the outer and inner covers. Addressing posterity, Mayakovsky's last poem is an impassioned defence of his own legacy. He was shouted down by students while reciting it on 9 April 1930 and committed suicide five days later.During his final days, the leading revolutionary and Futurist poet became entrenched in a poetical and political battle within the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. His poems stood accused of using language that was vulgar, obscure, and intellectually linked to the Left Opposition. Though this publication includes a laudatory preface by the Association's secretary, the organization soon began working against Mayakovsky's legacy, until in 1935 Stalin declared him as "the best and the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch". The work was first published the previous year in plainer covers.

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