This article discusses the linguistic aspect of address. The syntactic category of address attracted the attention of Russian linguists for a long time. The object of their study was address, the natural condition for the existence of which was oral and written forms of dialogical speech. A multilateral analysis of the essence and functioning of circulation in the Russian language was first presented in the works of A.A. Shakhmatova and A.M. Peshkovsky. In modern syntactic works and academic grammars, the methods of expression and distribution of addresses in oral and written dialogical speech, their bridges in the utterance, the nature of their intonation, depending on the lexical expression, the degree of prevalence, placement in the sentence are described. There are various approaches to the study of messages. Important are the analysis of the syntactic status of addresses (A.A. Shakhmatov, A.M. Peshkovsky), consideration of the functional aspect of the address (V.K. Kuzmicheva, O.A. Mizin), the study of address as a unit of speech etiquette (L.A. Vvedenskaya, N.I. Formanovskaya). Addressing is studied in linguistics by using a variety of approaches, each of which reveals the essence of the linguistic unit under study in a special way. A special aspect is the study of the semantic and functional features of addresses in poetic speech. Much less attention was paid to the study of conversions in poetic speech. In the writings of such scientists as L.Yu. Maksimov, Yu.I. Levin, I.I. Kovtunov contains observations concerning the ways of expression, dissemination and functioning of references in Russian lyric poetry of the 19th - 20th centuries. This article also examines the specifics of the use of addressing in the poetic works of M. Tsvetaeva. Address to people in general represents a great variety and each type has its own syntactic, semantic and functional features. This type of address is widely used in the poet's lyrics. So, in the poetic language of M. Tsvetaeva, addresses that are expressed by common nouns in the singular can name people according to various characteristics.