Nikolay Nikolaevich Aseev was born into ta white-collar family in the city of Lgov in the region of Kursk. After graduating from Kursk Community College in 1909, Assev moved to Moscow and enrolled in a Mercantile Institute. During this time he also studied Philology at Moscow University.
His first poetic collections, "Night Flute", written in 1914, and "Zor", written in 1914, were written in refined Formalist style. Later, Aseev moved towards a lyrical-philosophical understanding of reality with his books "Reflection", written in 1955, and "Lad", written in 1961.
All of Aseev's works, all of his poems and verses, are penetrated by Lyricism. He once said "I am a lyricist at heart, from the very essence of my being". Poems such as "Lyric Undertaking" and "Semen Proskakov" in 1928, "Twenty-Six" in 1924, and "Mayakovsky Beginning", in 1940, play an important role in Aseev's artistic legacy. He was awarded a government honor for the latter poem in 1941. Aseev also authored many important works on poetic theory and numerous articles about poetry, prose, words, and language.