The progressive movement in Kannada emerged in the 1940s and initiated debates on the writer's responsibility, the participation of literature in the people's movements and the social experiences it should deal with. The major literary form employed by the progressive writers was fiction. However, even before the inception of the movement, significant socio-political changes, the circulation of ideologies interrogating inequalities in society had inspired poetry whose concerns were those which the progressive movement foregrounded later. The present essay examines how the ideals of the movement were integrated into the major poetry of the period.