The first book of Szilárd Borbély, Adatok (1988), did not receive much attention from the readers and the critics, so it has not received any professional reviews. It is a book with eclectic genres, stylistic peculiarities and pathetic tones of the voice, that did not meet the readers’ expectations in the time of regime change. Critics of Borbély’s later books consider it an experiment. No comprehensive interpretations have been written and its place in the oeuvre has not been determined. The book is divergent at the first reading, yet this divergence is consistent. The style is often anachronistic, but the setting is full of experimental solutions, therefore the texts rely heavily on the experimental attitude of avant-garde poems. The study of the text corpus with its essayistic and lyrical details help to rehabilitate the first chapters of the lifework and to discover the topics, motifs and motivations of Borbély’s subsequent books. This essay takes a closer look at the first and only edition of Adatok, including the (essay)poems and related visual parts, the characteristics of Borbély’s first publications prior to this volume, and also the connections between Borbély’s early poems and the avant-garde.