The purpose of this study is correlating of the concepts “author”, “astrology”, “poetic reality”, “artistry” in their focus on the analysis of a literary or artistic work. Science about the author (astrology) comes from understanding the author as the subject of literary activities and literary work is understood as the objectification of the existential forces of the writer. A poetic reality is the internal form of literary works. Poetic reality is its structure: the external level which is the highlight of the image (the verbal-subjective organization, the form of the narrative); the inner level, which can be considered as the event depicted (“worldview”). The author in relation to the poetry of reality is the organizer of two levels: shows the “pattern of life” is both a “picture” of its poetic expression. Artistry as the quality of a literary or artistic work depends on the structure of poetic reality, the individual abilities of the author, the author's poetic vision of the world. The research centers on the poetic works of Russian poets of the Republic of Mari El. The author uses the method of autologous analysis of the text, comes to the conclusion about the dependence of the quality of a literary or artistic work of following the laws of poetic reality, and the skills of the author to present in his work a coherent picture of existence. Basic theoretical principles are confirmed by the analysis of poems of the poet-lover and the poet-professional. In the first case, the text objectified personality, the everyday perception of the world, expressed in the common statement, in the second case, objectified the poetic expressed in a metaphorical statement. This understanding of the studied concepts allows classifying texts on the basis of artistry, thus, a more reasonable approach to the selection of texts to build a history of Russian literature, including the history of Russian poetry in the Republic of Mari El.