At nineteen, she founded the review Il dado, working with collaborators such as Vasco Pratolini, Sandro Penna and Vincenzo Ciaffi.

Maria Luisa Spaziani's first book of poetry, Le acque del sabato, appeared in 1954.

Montale's poem "Da un lago svizzero" is an acrostic forming her name, Maria Luisa Spaziani.

)[citation needed] After travelling extensively in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in countries including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Greece, France, and the Soviet Union, Spaziani chose to settle in Rome.

Her poetry combines a vivid and immediate sense of the natural world with a rich appreciation of literary culture and tradition.