Interpretations of Okigbo's Limits have varied widely from the mystical, through the political, to the personal. All the divergence of opinion unfortunately cannot be attributed to the customary range of reactions which any poem of some complexity normally attracts. The root problem appears to me to have been that of technique: that there has been a tendency to circumvent the complexity by attaching interpretations to those elements of the poems which have fitted into preconceived theories and, therefore, move to conclusions without analysis and elucidation of the images of the poems and the total logic of those images. (p. 92)

I see the process of achieving meaning from the Limits, as from most of Okigbo's poetry, as dependent on two factors: firstly, an acquaintance with the very varied sources of Okigbo's imagery and symbolism: the many situations and myths of many cultures which to him become means with which...