Poems of Black Africa is a poetry anthology edited by Wole Soyinka, published in 1975 as part of the Heinemann African Writers Series. It was arranged by theme.
Introduction
Soyinka introduces Poems of Black Africa as being different from other anthologies because it is arranged by themes that go beyond what Soyinka calls the "customary settings" of other ways of organizing such as "regions, period, style, [and] authorship." He states that the purpose of this anthology was to put together poems that envelop the reality and sense of black Africa, both "modern and historic", through poetic expression. She notes in her review in World Literature Today that many of the poems included were written by African statesmen. In contrast to Barnett's review, Kelly notes a lack of quality writing throughout the selections; he calls the poems difficult to understand and says that they are full of overwriting and lack clarity, placing responsibility for this fault on the anthology and on Soyinka himself as editor. Kelly says that genuine feeling expressed in the poems is not enough to overcome the lack of structure and form. Ending his critique, he states that black poets would have been better served by an anthology that focused on quality rather than themes, calling Poems of Black Africa "provocative and embarrassing".