His style ranges from the surrealist tendency which marked his early poetry to the use of regional elements of his native northeastern Brazil.

In many works, including the famed auto Morte e Vida Severina, Melo Neto's addresses the life of those affected by the poverty and inequality in Pernambuco.

In 1956, Melo Neto published his most famous work, Morte e Vida Severina, and, in 1968, he was elected to the 37th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Commenting Pedra do Sono, his first book, Antonio Candido, who noted his debt to cubism and surrealism, observed how his poems were composed from the accumulation of concrete and sensory images, using words in an almost pictorial manner.

In O cão sem plumas (“A Dog without Feathers”)’, his first long poem, dated from 1950, he portrayed the lives of the destitute classes, who depended on the Capibaribe River, and described the toiling of the sugar-cane mill.