From the author:

Ivan Bunin once wrote humorous poems for the occasion using compound rhymes. A young Russian Parisian woman, who had already touched the “Parnassian pen,” asked the poet with amusing spontaneity why he did not use the same technique in serious poetry - “after all, your work is no worse than Mayakovsky’s.” Bunin flared up and did not respond to the point. If Bunin had honored the curious one with an answer, he might have said the following: the blood-love rhyme is a living reality, a linguistic given, which can only be abolished together with the Russian language; in aesthetics, to be left means to serve the immediate (“To the market! There the stomach is screaming...”); true verses appeal to the high in man, and our age will immediately cease to be low as soon as we stop reveling in baseness; finally, there is no better praise for a poet than to hear that he is behind the times: after all, this means that he is opposed to time, that is, he is fulfilling the most sacred purpose of art. I tried in my own way to recreate the structure of Bunin’s thoughts - in concern for readers who expect from poetry and novelty. I'm afraid they don't need to turn this page.