In the article, Milosz’s poem Campo di Fiori and Brodsky’s cycle The Roman Elegies arecompared in the aspect of the interpretation of the role of culture and poetic word in the existentialself-identification of the person and the poet. Through the analysis of Rome’s image in the lyricplot, the author of the article compares the worldview of the poets and their conception of the roleof poetry in history and in being. The second part of the article interprets the direct dialogue ofcontemporary Russian poets (Alexei Makushinskii, Gleb Shulpyakov, Ivan Barkov) with Milosz,that offered new variants of the Polish poet’s lyric collision.