Dox abandoned his studies in medicine in favor of agriculture, which gave him the freedom to focus on writing poetry. He moved to Mandoto, where he worked as a farmer and continued to develop his art. There he met Perle Razanabololona, and the couple married and started a family. In 1932, he joined with other notable Malagasy poets in advancing the "Mitady ny very" movement ("search for lost values"), launched by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Charles Rajoelisolo and Ny Avana Ramanantoanina, which exalted precolonial Malagasy identity and culture. Many of the poems Dox wrote in Mandoto were published in literary journals printed in Antananarivo, such as "Ny Mpandinika, Ny Tantsinanana, Ny Fandrosoam-Baovao, Ny Kintan'ny Maraina," and "Lakolosy Volamena." In 1941, he printed his first collection of poems, "Ny Hirako." When the nationalist uprising erupted in 1947, Dox rallied behind the "Mouvement démocratique de la rénovation malgache" (for which his father was the secretary of the Antsirabe branch), and suffered a gunshot wound during a protest.