theory of Imaginism. He was quoted as saying: "the skill must be contemporary, otherwise it will not touch." His following book of poetry, Автомобилья поступь (Automobilian Advance) expressed this opinion. It was his most significant in the pre-revolutionary period. In 1915, he volunteered into the Russian army's motor transport unit and sent to fight briefly in the First World War. After the Revolution After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Shershenevich lectured on poetry in the Proletkult, in the division of Narkompros that was responsible for publishing a multivolume dictionary of artists. Together with Vladimir Mayakovsky he wrote texts for the ROSTA posters. With V. Kamienski and Ryurik Ivnev he participated in the creation of the All-Russian union of poets, and starting in May 1919 was the group's chairman for more than a year. In 1918 Shershenevich became close to Sergei Yesenin and Anatoly Marienhof. He founded the "order of imaginists" and became the theorist of imaginism. At this time, 1918–20, his books of poetry exemplify the imaginist period. During the subsequent years he published the book of poems Cooperatives of merriment (1921), the play One continuous absurdity (1922) and the book about the art of his comrades Marienhof, Ivnev, Kusikov and Yesenin To whom I shake hands (1921). From 1919 through 1925 he participated in nine anthologies, including Foundry of Words (Plavil'nia slov) (1920) with Yesenin and Marienhof. Late years In 1926 Shershenevich published his own collection So, the Summary, his last poetic book. In it he broke with imaginist poetics. He summed up imaginism in these words: "Imaginism is dead ... Poetry has become polemic ... Lyricism is taken away from poetry and poetry without lyricism is as good as a race horse without a leg. Thus the failure of imaginism is understandable, as it always insisted on poetization of poetry." By that time Shershenevich had moved on to theatre. His plays were performed in theatres in Moscow. He translated plays by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht and Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal. He rewrote the libretti for a number of operettas and is credited as the screenwriter of three films. He also worked as a director in theatres in Moscow and outside of it. During the early part of World War II Shershenevich, sick with tuberculosis, was evacuated with the Moscow Chamber Theater to Barnaul, where he died on 18 May 1942. Works Books Spring Thaw (Весенние проталинки) (c.