In 1923, he moved to Kaunas where he joined cultural life, performing with the Vilkolakis Theatre and participating in the literary movement Keturi vėjai (Four Winds).

During the Soviet era, he adopted socialist realism style and wrote works praising the new communist regime.

For his epic poem Usnynė, which described lives of Lithuanian peasants from struggles in interwar Lithuania to building of the utopian socialism, he was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1951.

Several of his family members wrote poems and other literary works, including his elder brother Jurgis Tilvytis [lt] who was a Catholic priest and nephew Pulgis Andriušis.

[1] Tilvytis studied at the Panevėžys and Utena Progymnasiums [lt], but was known as a mischievous student and was expelled from the 5th grade for arrogant behaviors with the teachers.

[1] In his autobiography, Tilvytis later claimed that he was expelled for publishing excerpts critically evaluating the life of Jesus in a student newspaper.

[3] He performed with the Vilkolakis Theatre, which became known for its satirical productions, and joined the literary movement Keturi vėjai (Four Winds).

[5] Soviet authorities nationalized a luxurious house of banker Jonas Vailokaitis and gave it the Lithuanian Writers' Union.

He wrote a satirical poem Letter to Vailokaitis in which he expressed joy for the end of the bourgeois and start of the communist regimes.

[1] Tilvytis wrote rhymed feuilleton and satirical poems often based on current events[3] that targeted bureaucrats, corruption, as well as the regime of President Antanas Smetona.

Dičius, an honest village boy, travels to Kaunas to escape poverty and backwardness but perishes in the morally bankrupt city.

[3] Dičius was named after a brother of the opera singer Alodija Dičiūtė-Trečiokienė [lt] with whom Tilvytis were school friends in Utena.

[3] Tilvytis was inspired to write the work for the 500th anniversary of Grand Duke Vytautas to showcase the contrast between different social classes, personified by a worker and a "bloody policeman".

[9] The poem describes lives of Lithuanian peasants from struggles in interwar Lithuania to building of the utopian socialism and happy life in a kolkhoz.

The poem openly mentions Soviet practice of leaving dead bodies of Lithuanian partisans in town squares as a collective warning to others.

[9] He published the poetry collections Baltijos vėjas (Wind From the Baltic; 1948), Sonetai apie laimę (Sonnets on Happiness; 1951), and Tėvynės laukuos (On Native Fields; 1953) as well as collections of satirical verse Nameliai mano brangūs (House of My Childhood; 1958) and Deja, dar pasitaiko (Alas, It Happens; 1964).

[3] He wrote the poem Daina gyvybės kaina (Song of the Expense of Life; 1962) in memory of poet Vytautas Montvila [lt] who was executed by the Nazis in 1941.