Vladimir Mayakovsky… Back in 1918, he wanted something contemporary… but was an admirer nonetheless.

“On 19 January 1922, Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky gave a speech which included this declaration: "Anna Akhmatova's indoor intimacy, Vyacheslav Ivanov's mystic poems and Hellenistic themes —what meaning have they for our harsh and steely age? But how can we suddenly say writers like Ivanov and Akhmatova are worthless? Of course, as literary landmarks, as the last remnants of a crumbling order, they will find their place in the pages of histories of literature, but for us, for our age, they are pointless, pathetic and comic anachronisms" (quoted and trans. by Haight, p. 71).

Yet Lily Brik, Mayakovsky's mistress for many years, said that whenever he was in love he read Akhmatova, quoting her from morning until night.”