In Pushkin’s poems “Arion,” “The Poet,” and “Exegi Monumentum,” there was a remarkable consistency in message surrounding the role and power of the written word. In “Arion,” Pushkin depicts himself as a “secret singer” on a boat with a “skillful helmsman”. When the ocean suddenly becomes rough “all were lost” except for Pushkin, who is able to peacefully “dry in the sun”. The fact that the only differentiator between Pushkin and the rest of the crew is his ability to “sing [his] anthems,” seems to indicate that this quality is the one that saved him from the storm. Pushkin goes more explicitly into the power of his words in “The Poet” and “Exegi Momentum”. He describes a poet’s sensibilities saying, “Yet once the god-engendered word/But touches on the vivid senses,/The poet’s soul awakens.” However, the impact of this “awakening” is that “Before the idol of the nation/He is too proud to bend his knees.” The contrast between the words “god” and “idol” are telling, especially the fact that Pushkin equates “god” with the poet’s word and “idol” with the nation. The “word” is the truly divine, while the “nation,” and therefore the Tsar, is a false god that definitionally should not be worshipped. Pushkin expands on this potentially heretical and treasonous idea in “Exegi Momentum”. He states describes his theoretical monument stating, “Czar Alexander’s column it exceeds/in splendid insubmissive height.” The fact that a creation of Pushkin’s not only “exceeds” that of the Czar but does so “insubmissively” is an indisguised act of defiance. Pushkin then makes clear that his “monument” is related to his mastery of language by stating that his “sprit will survive,/and my sublunar fame will dwell as long/as there is one last bard alive.” Here, the “bard” harkens back to the “singer” in “Arion,” and has a similar type of power. Pushkin’s “spirit” and “fame” will live on as long as there is a “bard” to preserve them. This image also returns to the life-giving nature of story-tellers also brought up in “Arion”. In “Arion,” “The Poet,” and “Exegi Momentum,” Pushkin simultaneously praises the divine, life-giving nature of the poetic word while placing it above the Tsar’s own divinity and power.