D.R. Bendre (Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre), who wrote under the pen-name of Ambikatanayadatta, is amongst the most famous of kannada poets of the Navodaya period. He started off with some amazingly simple and earthly romantic poetry, in fact often using the "spoken" language, thus gaining instant admiration of the masses. His later works dig deeper into social and philosophical matters. He is a recipient of the prestigious Jnanpith Award. His works include the following collections of poems: Gari, Gangavatarana, Nadalele, and Naakutanti. Naakutanti won him the Jnanpith.