A Survey of African Poetry in the London Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement 1865-1985

"In the Arms of the Prison", The Times Literary Supplement, 05 Nov 1971, p. 1382 The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive,, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/EX1200376623/GDCS?u=linc74325&sid=GDCS&xid=bc8bafd2. Accessed 17 Dec 2019

[Excerpt, Gerald Moore reviews 'Song of Prisoner, Song of Malaya.'] Since his celebrated Song of Lawino some four years ago, great interest has focused upon Okot p'Bitek's success in developing an East African poetic diction in English whose form, imagery, and points of reference are derived entirely from a vernacular original. The first successor to Lawino, Okot's Song of Ocol, was a disappointment, for it savoured too much of a conscientious attempt to give a voice to an essentially dull, pompous, and vindictive husband. But it was interesting to trace Okot's influence in the work of another Acoli writer, Okello Oculi, whose Orphan offered some passages of real bitterness and power...The impact of the second song is weakened by a slight sentimentalizing of the all-knowing, all-suffering harlot; yet here too Okot uses his new poetic language to induce the reader's sympathy to flow into strange places and to illuminate the corners of hidden lives. His songs are certainly one of the most original and important departures in the poetry of Africa today."