In 1916 he published his first book, "La sangre devota" ("The Pious Blood"), which he dedicated to "the spirits" of the Mexican poets Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera and Manuel José Othón, and was well received by the Mexican literary community. The book – and even its title – concerned the Catholic liturgy, which was associated with the idealized world of the author's childhood in Jerez, and identified as the only refuge from his turbulent city life. The poem "Viaje al terruño" is fundamentally an attempt to evoke a return to childhood. Nevertheless, this nostalgia is not free of a certain ironic distance, as in the poem "Tenías un rebozo de seda..." he remembers himself as a "seminarian, without Baudelaire, without rhyme, and without a sense of smell".