SOURCE: Yenser, Stephen. “Timepiece.” Poetry 128, no. 6 (September 1976): 349-54.

In the following review, Yenser considers the enigmatic language, gritty tone, and thematic sweep of Warren's collection Or Else.

Sometimes it is the way the tone changes and sometimes the way the syntax explicates itself and often the way the figures follow—but throughout his recent book Robert Penn Warren keeps the reader just off balance. The conclusion of the first poem, “The Nature of a Mirror” (which might have been subtitled And Vice Versa, it so neatly compacts the now proverbial dictum into a tautology), will exemplify a part of what I mean:

                                                                                                                                                      the sun, Beyond the western ridge of black-burnt pine stubs like A snaggery of rotten shark teeth, sinks Lower, larger, more blank, and redder than A mother's rage, as though F. D. R. had never run for office even, or the first vagina Had not had...