SOURCE: Bloom, Harold. “Sunset Hawk: Warren’s Poetry and Tradition.” In A Southern Renascence Man: Views of Robert Penn Warren, edited by Walter B. Edgar, pp. 59-79. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984.

In the following essay, Bloom probes Warren's place within, and development of, the American poetic tradition.

The beginning is like a god which as long as it dwells among men saves all things.

—Plato, Laws 775

Where can an authentic poet begin again, when clearly the past has ceased to throw its illumination upon the future? Robert Penn Warren's poetry spans nearly sixty years, from “Pondy Woods” to his long poem upon Chief Joseph, against whom the United States fought its last serious Indian war. No final perspective is possible upon a strong poet whose own wars are far from over. I have been reading Warren's poetry for thirty years, since I first came to Yale...