The two-volume book by the famous critic and literary critic Lev Anninsky contains creative biographies of Russian poets of the 20th century who were able to express the time most fully and vividly in their work and whose destinies were inextricably intertwined with the history of the country. The books can be used as a guide to literature, but the task that the author sets for himself is much more serious: to explore the social and psychological situations that determined the rise of poetry in the Red Age. The first volume included literary essays, the heroes of which were A. Blok, N. Klyuev, V. Khlebnikov, N. Gumilev, I. Severyanin, Vl. Khodasevich, O. Mandelstam, B. Pasternak, A. Akhmatova, M. Tsvetaeva, V. Mayakovsky, S. Yesenin, E. Bagritsky, N. Tikhonov, P. Antokolsky, I. Selvinsky, A. Prokofiev, M. Isakovsky, A. Barkova, V. Lugovskoy, A. Surkov, M. Svetlov, N. Zabolotsky, L. Martynov. The second volume includes literary essays, the heroes of which were D. Kedrin, B. Kornilov, P. Vasiliev, Y. Smelyakov, A. Tarkovsky, A. Tvardovsky, O. Berggolts, V. Tushnova, A. Yashin, K. Simonov, M. Aliger, V. Bokov, P. Kogan, M. Kulchitsky, N. Mayorov, M. Lukonin, B. Slutsky, D. Samoilov, S. Orlov, N. Tryapkin, A. Mezhirov, B. Chichibabin, B. Okudzhava, N. Korzhavin.