[Sinking Ship Blues is a collection of Breytenbach's poems and drawings.] The title is somewhat misleading, since these forceful poems cannot be called "blues" as such (and yet they do have something of an anguished keening), and is derived from the subtitle of the volume Skryt, "To Paint a Sinking Ship Blue"—presumably the ship of state. Even so, this collection does give an idea of Breytenbach's sweep, authority and mastery. He is something of a surrealist, with the freshness and childlike vision of an original. The quiet and intimate love poetry full of wordplay and sleights of hand is not represented here, but we do have the fine political poems ringing with indignation against injustices, such as "Letter to Butcher from Abroad."…

Barend J. Toerien, "Africa & the West Indies: 'Sinking Ship Blues'," in World Literature Today (copyright 1978 by the University of Oklahoma Press), Vol. 52, No. 4, Autumn, 1978, p...