SOURCE: Fitts, Dudley. “Of Tragic Stature.” Poetry LXV, no. 11 (November 1944): 94-101.

In the following review of Selected Poems: 1923-1943, Fitts comments on Marvellian traces in Warren's poetry, and on the near grotesque, tragicomic quality of “The Ballad of Billie Potts.”

This selection of poems represents the work of twenty years, extending from the time of Robert Penn Warren's association with that brilliant group of Nashville poets who called themselves The Fugitives, down to the publication, last year, of the memorable “Ballad of Billie Potts.” I met this poetry early, thanks to the enthusiasm of another Fugitive, Merrill Moore, when it was still in the five-finger-exercise stage: accomplished verse, owing much to John Crowe Ransom (a debt which the younger Fugitives shared in common), “promising.” I remember that someone—was it William Knickerbocker?—called it “affectionate,” “chaste,” “athletic,” adjectives which he would probably want to qualify today. It was...