Timid and unassuming, José María Eguren had little awareness of his great gift or of the influence he would have on subsequent generations of poets. There were few hermetic poets preceding him, and linguistic renovation was previously almost unknown in twentieth-century Latin America. His poetry, which incorporated new voices to enrich poetic language, introduced an exotic flavor and unprecedented techniques to the Latin American poetry of his time. As Isaac Goldberg states in his essay on Eguren for his Studies in Spanish-American Literature (1920), Eguren's poetry "brings the sensation of the mystery of silent lives, of the tragedy of daily existence . . . and the musical transposition of the landscapes. . . . [He] merges music and mystery with meaning that must be sought." Eguren's aesthetic independence and strong artistic sense of the word served as a precursor to Vanguardismo (Vanguardism) and a strong foundation to the poetic schools that followed...