Andrei Voznesensky has been one of the brightest stars of the Russian literary firmament for the past fifteen years and has enjoyed wide popularity abroad as well during most of that time. His poetry shines a biting wit on a sort of science-fiction fantasy of the modern world (or "antiworld," as he prefers to call it), and this is an arresting stylistic combination in any language…. [He has] inherited Mayakovsky's mantle as the Russian revolutionary satirist…. There is no American equivalent of Voznesensky, but if one imagined a blend of E. E. Cummings's verbal wit and Vachel Lindsay's platform drama, one might have a fair notion of Voznesensky's popular appeal.

At his best, Voznesensky can be brilliant in a calculatedly zany way, delighting in puns and ironic contrasts and commanding an international range of subjects, from the Paris Flea Market to the New York Airport, from Goya to...