One of his most famous poems, "Dramilo" (A Pick-me-up), is a poetic appeal to Slovenes to be proud of their land, language, and heritage.

[5] In addition to poetry and journalism, Vodnik also wrote grammars, textbooks, and even the first Slovene-language cookbook (Kuharske bukve, 1799) and a translation of a manual for midwives (Babištvo, "Midwifery"; 1818) by Johann Matoschek (Slovene: Jan Matoušek; 1790–1820).

In 1809, he wrote a poem, called Ilirija oživljena ("Illyria Reborn"), in which he praised Napoleon Bonaparte for having established the Illyrian Provinces.

In his writings, written in the old bohoričica orthography, he used his native Upper Carniolan dialect, into which he incorporated words and grammatical features from other Slovenian dialects to make it more widely understood; his approach included purifying the common lexicon substituting German expressions with more local expressions obtained across many Slovene regions.

[1] Although he is rarely praised for being a deep or original poet, his poems convey honest sentiments, and his use of irony is noteworthy.

As a member of Sigmund Zois' circle, he helped several younger talents, including France Prešeren, the most important Slovenian poet.

The obverse shows Valentin Vodnik's profile, the bottom portion of the coin is inscribed with the last verse of the poem "Moj spomenik," which in English says: "No daughter no son, to come after me, enough memory done, my songs sing of me."