He started his career[1] in 1970, as an elementary school teacher in the border village of Zamiin Uud, Dornogovi aimag, in the far south east of Mongolia.
After the 1990 Democratic Revolution in Mongolia, Mend-Ooyo became the Chief Project Lead and driving force behind the reconstruction of the Migjid Janraisig complex at Gandantegchinlen Monastery in Ulaanbaatar.
He joined in fellow residency program in Civitella Ranieri Foundation in 2014, and also led the World Poetry Days in Mongolia in 2017.
[8] According to Simon Wickham-Smith, they "came to dominate the poetry scene during the subsequent ten or fifteen years, and their work is vital for a proper understanding of recent literary history in Mongolia.
"[9] GAL transformed during the 1980s into an "independent flow of literary writing called GUNU",[8] whose writers "nowadays exercise(s) the greatest influence on Mongolian literature.
After the 1990 Democratic Revolution in Mongolia and the end of single-party communist rule, he started to publish more of his work, "including the writing that espoused his pastoral roots and eventually became his best-known poems.
He explains that "Mend-Ooyo's poetic novel Altan Ovoo offers a vision of nomadic literature based as much on the history and worldview of Mongol nomadic herders as on the late twentieth century Mongolia, poised between Soviet-influenced socialism and Euro-American democratic capitalism, in which it was written.
"[12] Gegeenten (The Holy One), published in 2012,[13] is a modern example of the traditional Mongolian genre of namtar, non-canonical biographies of Buddhist saints intended to be read by common people.
He says of this experience: "It was amazing how easy and peaceful it was to erase what I had written, to begin again, to change words and to rearrange them, and to adjust the rhythm of a poem.
[19] He received many international award and accolades, from China to England, Greece and Korea, India, Japan and the USA.
2008 was also a rewarding year for Mend-Ooyo, with awards from the Crane Summit 21st Century International (Poetry) Forum and the Soka Gakkai University.
In 2015 he received the Order of Chinggis Khaan, the highest honor of Mongolia, by the declaration of Mongolian President.
Before setting out creating some sixty calligraphies, Battömör first read two of Mend-Ooyo's (All Shining Moments and A Patch of White Mist) for inspiration.
[22] In 2014, Mend-Ooyo participated in the joint calligraphy exhibition Sky, Sun and Partnership, held at the Blue Moon Art Gallery, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Mongolian-Japanese cultural relations.
[24] Some of the exhibited pieces were to be auctioned for charity, the proceeds donated to volunteer groups to support the recovery of the area affected by the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake.
He is trying to keep the nomadic spirit alive in spite of modernization" He adds "Mr. Mend-Ooyo is arguably the most important poet in Mongolia today, and certainly the one with the most presence, though some of the newer generation might say he is a bit stuck in the past.
"[6] In the same article for the WSJ, Bavuudorj Tsogdorj,[10] 43 years old and an exponent of the younger generation of Mongolian poets, expresses his belief that "his increasingly urbanized countrymen will eventually appreciate their nomadic tradition."