Pasternak and Mayakovsky … have provided Voznesensky with so many models of poetic expression, and even values (moral and poetic), that at times his style seems to have been built entirely out of theirs. Their influences are particularly strong in his first three books,… but they can also be traced in his later collections. Very roughly, it may be said that Pasternak is felt primarily in the stylistic and technical aspects, Mayakovsky in the themes and vocabulary.

Voznesensky originally trained as an architect…. This provides a point of similarity with Pasternak, who also came to poetry via another art (in Pasternak's case, music). In both cases we have no juvenilia (poetry written before the age of twenty), and in both cases the early poetry is marked by unusual freshness and freedom from current conventions. (p. 41)

In Voznesensky's first two books the presence of Pasternak is frequently unmistakable. The resemblances...