Gorodetsky entered the literary scene as a Symbolist, developing friendships with Alexander Blok, Vyacheslav Ivanov, and Valery Briusov. Following his brief stint with Symbolists, Gorodetsky began to associate with younger poets, forming the Acmeist group with Nikolai Gumilev, Anna Akhmatova, and Osip Mandelshtam. Subsequently, abandoning yet another group, he welcomed the Bolshevik revolution as a Soviet poet.