Profession: poet

Mayakovsky’s fellow-student Burlyuk and he were expelled together for their Futurist activities; Burlyuk paid him so he could write without starving. Osip Brik, Tretyakov and Mayakovsky edited an avant-garde journal. Vertov (who said he loved him immediately), Babel, Shklovsky and Eisenstein were among contributors to his magazine ‘Lef.’ Rodchenko, Meyerhold and Shostakovich were close collaborators. In Paris Mayakovsky visited Picasso, Braque, Léger and Cocteau, and attended Proust’s funeral. Pasternak knew him well, admired him, but said he inflated his talent. He was involved with Triolet, but became her sister Lilya Brik’s lover.

Yevtushenko is known for his early outspoken verse, and for his place in popular culture before he became a member of the establishment. Akhmadulina was married to him; with Voznesensky and Rozhdestvensky, they formed a popular poetic vanguard. Shostakovich used Yevtushenko’s words in a symphony (the poet’s wife thought Shostakovich an impostor when he first telephoned). Yevtushenko was charmed by Pasternak, and helped get his house preserved. He had an extensive set of friends in America — some met there, some in Russia — and travelled and corresponded widely. Cheever (a friend) said his ego could crack crystals at twenty feet.

Corso was a flawed Beat-scene star, a heavy heroin habit reducing his later output. Ginsberg, met in in Greenwich Village, introduced him to Burroughs and Kerouac, and travelled with him across the US, then to Mexico, North Africa and Paris (where Genet upbraided him for painting on his landlord’s walls). He hung out with de Kooning in Rome, and with Ferlinghetti, McClure, Snyder and Duncan in San Francisco. Auden showed Ginsberg and him around Oxford. He made a pilgrimage to visit Williams, helped Kerouac give Pollock a drunken beating, was head-butted by Olson, and regretted lending Rexroth his copy of Shelley.

Heidsieck’s role in establishing sound poetry in France is significant; his use of tape-recording was especially innovative. His key professional friendship was with Chopin; they were founder members of the mixed-media group ‘Domaine Poétique’. Giorno was also a friend (he helped Heidsieck record the sound of his bank’s computers), Rivers (on sax) his sole collaborator, Schneemann among many visitors. He sent a ‘sound-letter’ to Gysin, ill in London. Ashbery took him to supper with Saint Phalle and Tinguely, who grilled meat on a kinetic sculpture. A banker by day, one of his friends described him as a disciplined anarchist.