He published nine books of poems in the 1960s, dealing with the appearance of the present culture and the sensual experience of active subjectivity.

His sensibility and the despair of civilisation permeating Rom, Blicke and the other posthumously published prose writings goes deep.

On April 23, 1975, after a reading at Cambridge Poetry Festival Brinkmann was killed in London when he was hit by a car on his way to dinner with Jürgen Theobaldy.

[1] He was posthumously awarded the Petrarca-Preis in 1975 for his major and highly praised and influential last book of poetry Westwärts 1 & 2 (1975).

In 2005 a new expanded edition of this book was published with 26 longer poems finally added as well as a 75 pages long postscript by the author.