This book reprints the poem Mayakovsky's "Pro Eto," written between December 1922 and February 1923, along with English and German translations, documentation, color reproductions of the original photomontages, and critical text. Alexander Lavrentiev writes that "it is a work in which Mayakovsky uses the novel medium of freely associative verse to grapple - sometimes realistically, sometimes availing himself of poetic licence - with love and philistinism, revolution and drinking tea." When Mayakovsky travelled to Berlin for an exhibition of works by graphic artists from Russia, he noticed publications that successfully used photographs and photomontages instead of drawings. He requested Rodchenko, with whom he had previously collaborated in advertising work, to produce photomontages for the book. Pro Eto was published in 1923. The book is considered one of the milestones in innovative literary content and graphic presentation first "because it represents a new kind of love poetry. Secondly, because it owes its design to Alexander Rodchenko...And thirdly because it is the first book to be illustrated not with drawings, with typeset graphics, but using the technique of photomontage." It was also the first attempt to use the poet, Mayakovsky, and his lover, Lily Brik, as concrete characters in book design. The Sackner Archive holds a photograph printed from by the original negative by the Rodchenko family in 1974 of the fourth photomontage that features samovars, cups and spoons. As mentioned by Lavrentiev, "The act of drinking tea was for Mayakovsky both symbolic for and synonymous with the life of the complacent philistine who allows himself to be consumed by the banalities of day-today existence." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.