As a young Bolshevik activist, Mayakovsky distributed propaganda leaflets, possessed a pistol without a license, and in 1909 got involved in smuggling female political activists out of prison. This resulted in a series of arrests and finally an 11-month imprisonment. It was in solitary confinement in the Moscow Butyrka prison that Mayakovsky started writing verses for the first time. "Revolution and poetry got entangled in my head and became one," he wrote in I, Myself. As a minor, Mayakovsky was spared a serious prison sentence (with associated deportation) and in January 1910 was released. A warden confiscated the young man's notebook. Years later Mayakovsky conceded that was all for the better, yet he always cited 1909 as the year his literary career started.
