SOURCE: Wright, James. “The Stiff Smile of Mr. Warren.” In Robert Penn Warren: Critical Perspectives, edited by Neil Nakadate, pp. 262-9. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1981.
In the following review, originally published in 1958, Wright calls Warren “unpredictable” as a poet and focuses on “distortions of language” in his collection Promises: Poems 1954-1956. The critic continues by analyzing “The Child Next Door,” viewing it as “a successful, though disturbing poem.”
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