Sabines was born on March 25, 1926 in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas.

Before he devoted himself to the study of literature, he spent three years studying medicine before moving on to his real vocation: Spanish and literature, studying at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and obtaining a postgraduate degree. Sabines was an outstanding student at the Mexican Writers Centre from 1964 to 1965 and part of the jury for the Casa de las Americas prize. In addition to his literary activity, he participated in politics and became a federal deputy for the First District of Chiapas from 1976 to 1979, and for the Federal District in 1988. Sabines was awarded the Chiapas Award (1979), the Xavier Villaurrutia Award (1972), the Elias Sourasky Award (1982) and the National Literature Award (1983).

A collection of his work, Nuevo recuento de poemas, was issued by the publisher Joaquín Mortiz in 1977, and the Secretariat of Public Education in 1986. In 1994 he received from the Senate of Mexico the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor; in 1995, his selected poems, Pieces of Shadow (trans. W.S. Merwin), was brought out in a bilingual edition by Papeles Privados; and in 2004 Exile Editions (Toronto, Canada) published a bilingual volume of two early Sabines books, Adam and Eve & Weekly Diary and Poems in Prose (trans. Colin Carberry.) Octavio Paz considered him “one of the greatest contemporary poets of our [Spanish] language.”

Sabines died on March 19, 1999 in Mexico City.