During the war years, he wrote the plays "Russian People", "Wait for Me", "So It Will Be", the short novel "Days and Nights", and two books of poems, "With You and Without You" and "War". His poem "Wait for Me", about a soldier in the war asking his beloved to wait for his return, remains one of the best-known poems in Russian literature. The poem was addressed to his future wife, the actress Valentina Serova. Many of his poems for Valentina were included in the book "With You and Without You".