SOURCE: "A Social Poet," in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Vol. LXI, February, 1943, pp. 634-36.

In this review of Walker's first volume of poems, Algren compliments her on her ability to communicate as a social poet but faults her for some stylistic weaknesses.

In this volume the Yale Series has effected a wholesome deviation from previous presentations by giving us a poet who is not, for one, a poet's poet. Miss Walker is intense and forthright without being oratorical; she is terse and demanding without loss of rhythm. She depends upon meanings more than upon metaphysics.

The piece called "Delta" is not Miss Walker's so much as it is her people's. It is one of those songs which derive music and message from sheer weight of social pressure. It possesses the restless music that oppression makes in the human heart, and recreates the mood of the human mind...