Very few books of poetry caused much of a stir in the general culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the period when "The Reverse Side" appeared in Dunn's book Different Hours. But Different Hours did earn praise for Dunn from a small set of critics, and the book was awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize, one of the highest honors given for poetry.

A review of Different Hours by Bill Christophersen in Poetry refers to "The Reverse Side" specifically, commenting that the poem, among others in the book, conveys "the sense that truth is a chameleon." Several other critics comment on the tolerance or appetite for moral complexity strongly evident in "The Reverse Side," which is a feature of Dunn's poetry in general. Andrea Hollander Budy writes in her Arkansas Democrat-Gazette review of Different Hours:

Dunn's speaker is a man who occupies the territory of the...