Tirumalesh's career as a writer began in the 1960s when he wrote the collection of poems
MukhavaaDagalu (Masks, 1968) in the
Navya style, the modernist school of writing in
Kannada literature. His
Mahaprasthana (1990) was said to be the result of his exploration of ways of transcending the constraints of modernism. It dealt with the theme of disillusionment after victory, with the mythological
heavenward journey of the Pandavas as the setting. He elaborated: "Aksh aya Kavya imbibes this spirit in an extensive way . It is a long narrative sans story, sans didacticism, sans any aim, a sort of poetic sojourn with a lot of gaps. It is long and fragmentary at the same time: my models are
Ezra Pound,
William Carlos Williams and
Charles Olson." The work won him the
Sahitya Akademi Award for Kannada in 2015. ==Death==