The evolution of Manuel Bandeira’s poetry describes, much more than an aesthetic rebellion, a search for authenticity, a progressive stripping away of adornment in order to focus on the fundamental. It is a poetry that sought more to rid itself of artificialities than to invent new ones; a poetry that is intimate, personal, and sincere, original more for the expression of an individuality than for the form—the form, which Bandeira himself expressly called secondary and which seems, to some, to constitute the essence of his poetic creation. That is why Bandeira is not imitated: to do so, one would have to be him; an honor that fortunately will not be bestowed on anyone.