The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, ed. Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (Penguin, £9.99 in UK)

These poets, most of them still living, come from Angola, Botswana, the Cameroons, the Congo, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria (a great many), Senegal, Sierra Leone, etc. They also come in a variety of languages including French, but only English versions are given, which seems sensible. The better-known names include Wole Soyinka, Leopold Senghor, Ben Okri, Dennis Brutus. Predictably, Western influences are strong but not dominant, and there are many poems of social indignation and political radicalism, which was also predictable; but the range both of voices and topics is wide and cannot easily be categorised. Though Senghor - now a grand old man of African literature - is allotted eleven poems, his fellow-Senegalese Birago Diop (1906-89) seems rather more sensitive to me, and also more interesting.