Francisco Brines, along with Claudio Rodríguez, José Angel Valente, Angel González, Jaime Gil de Biedma, and others, belongs to the "Generation of the 1950s," or, according to critic Philip W. Silver, the "Rodríguez-Brines Generation," a term which underlines Brines's central role in the formation of this group. The poets of this generation differ from their immediate predecessors--Gabriel Celaya, Angela Figuera, Victoriano Crémer, Blas de Otero, and others--in several important ways. First, for the Rodríguez-Brines Generation, the poem is not an instrument of social change but an inquiry into the nature of reality and the mystery of human existence. This type of poetry is called the "poetry of discovery" by Andrew P. Debicki, or "la poesía del conocimiento" (the poetry of knowledge) by the poets themselves.

Second, the focus in the poems is not society but...