The collections "Poems and Stories" (1900) and "Flowers of the Field" (1901) were followed by "Falling Leaves" (Листопад, 1901), Bunin's third book of poetry (including a large poem of the same title first published in the October 1900 issue of "Zhizn" (Life) magazine). It was welcomed by both critics and colleagues, among them Alexander Ertel, Alexander Blok and Aleksandr Kuprin, who praised its "rare subtlety." Even though the book testifies to his association with the Symbolists, primarily Valery Bryusov, at the time many saw it as an antidote to the pretentiousness of 'decadent' poetry which was then popular in Russia. "Falling Leaves" was "definitely Pushkin-like", full of "inner poise, sophistication, clarity and wholesomeness," according to critic Korney Chukovsky. Soon after the book's release, Gorky called Bunin (in a letter to Valery Bryusov) "the first poet of our times." It was for "Falling Leaves" (along with the translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha", 1898) that Bunin was awarded his first Pushkin Prize. Bunin justified a pause of two years in the early 1900s by the need for "inner growth" and spiritual change.