SOURCE: Dasenbrock, Reed Way. Review of Mandela's Earth and Other Poems, by Wole Soyinka. World Literature Today 63, no. 3 (summer 1989): 524-25.

In the following review, Dasenbrock argues that the poems in Mandela's Earth and Other Poems are too responsive to criticism of his earlier poetry and, as a result, the collection seem inauthentic.

It should never be said that Wole Soyinka is unresponsive to criticism. Attacked by Chinweizu and others as a Eurocentric modernist out of touch with Africa, Soyinka responded with Aké: The Years of Childhood, a memoir that clarified his African roots and cultural allegiances. Attacked by the same critics for overly difficult and esoteric poetry, Soyinka now responds with Mandela's Earth, a new volume of poetry much less enigmatic than his earlier verse and overtly Africanist in its political commitments. However, not all responses are created equal, and though Aké is a superb work, possibly Soyinka's...