He was a prolific writer who, together with Rogelio G. Mangahas and Lamberto E. Antonio, drove the second successful modernist movement in Filipino poetry. His early literary critique was compiled in Ang Makata sa Panahon ng Makina (1972), which is today regarded as the first book of literary criticism in Filipino. Virgilio Almario was born on January 25, 1918 in San Jose, California to Paciano Almario and Estrella De Guia. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his B.A. in English in 1940. That same year, he married Conchita Montenegro, a fellow student from Spain. They had three children: Virginia, María Elena and Virgilio Jr. After graduating from college, Almario worked as an editor for several newspapers in California before moving with his family to Manila in 1949. There he started out as an editorial assistant at the now-defunct magazine Forum before becoming its chief editor in 1952. In this role, he formulated the guidelines by which it published new poets. Almario's own poems were first published in Forum, but they soon began to appear in other magazines as well, including Philippine Poesy and Hayden's Review. He also wrote essays on literature and art for various publications.