[Christmas in Biafra], Chinua Achebe's first book of poetry, may turn out to be, like Things Fall Apart, a landmark in African writing…. Written during the long period of his silence as a novelist, the poems are a chronicle of the difficult years of a man and his nation, as well as a truly unified book of poetry which has much to offer for both African and Western readers. Divided into 5 sections, the book takes us on a journey which begins with dark omens of disaster, progresses into the nightmare of a fratricidal war, passes through the difficult transition period when both the writer's own voice and the nation of Nigeria were being reborn, and finally rises to the point where the poet has returned, full-blown, to both his power and his duty as a writer.

The book begins with a short poem, "1966."… The poem is rich in inference and reflects the duality of the poet's vision of Christianity. (It is the same Christianity which would be the forerunner of empire and yet also a faith possessed of a kind of gentle grace which would stir the heart of Nwoye, the son of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart.) The oil which was an important reason for the involvement of the European nations in the Nigerian War, the disappointment of Christianity in Nigeria (a land which some of the early missionaries saw as a new Eden, an Eden they would create), the death of Abel at the hands of Cain and the forthcoming "war between brothers" are all conjured up by these few lines. It is the type of poem which we encounter throughout the book, simple, understated, full of irony and possessing of a depth which many may miss on first reading. (pp. 23-4)

"Mango Seedling," which may be Achebe's best-known poem,… speaks of a mango seedling which sprouts on the concrete of an office building and then dies from lack of water. Dedicated to Christopher Okigbo …, the prodigiously talented young Igbo poet who was killed in the Civil War, the poem is an image of both the dead poet and the Biafran state. Without ever mentioning the now familiar clichés of malnourished babies and bombed villages, the poem achieves a feeling of the loss, the pain and suffering which those two deaths entailed. The mango seedling lives on "seed-yams" (yams stored to be planted the following season—when they are gone there will be no harvest in the following year)…. When its death comes at last, it is tragic, yet something other than a defeat. (pp. 24-5)

In the second section of the book, "Poems About War," the irony grows even stronger…. [Here], for the first time in the book, we are shown the familiar image which was for most Americans the quintessence of what Biafra meant—a mother and her starving baby. Two poems in this section, "Mother and Child" and "Christmas in Biafra" concern themselves with that well-known tableau, yet they do so in a way which is most untypical, making points which few Western newsmen cared to make. Both poems relate to Christianity with quiet anger…. In ["Christmas in Biafra"], its title alone a colossal irony, all of the apparatus of the sacred season has gone rotten. Even the hymns broadcast over the radio are filled with messages which are the opposite of what they purport to be…. A mother, too poor to offer even the worthless secessionist currency, tries to show her starving child the crèche, but he turns away…. The repetition of "distance" in the poem emphasizes the gap between the people and the religion which was both harbinger and tool of the colonial era which led inexorably to the Biafran conflict. The child's lack of recognition and his turning away from the meaningless spectacle of a well-fed white Christ child is obviously a response which Achebe feels to be the right one.

There is no glorification of war in Achebe's poems. There is hardly even a condemnation of the "other" side. Instead, in the midst of numb agony, a finger is pointed back toward that first contact with the West which has been at the heart of much of Achebe's writing. The finger is also pointed across oceans, to England and to Russia. In "Air Raid" Achebe associates Russian MIGS used by the Federal Government with the places of ill omen in Igbo folk belief, the "Evil Forests" where malicious spirits dwell…. And in one of the poems in the last section of the book, "He Loves Me; He Loves Me Not," he mentions the leader of the British government which supplies arms to both the Federal Republic of Nigeria and South Africa…. (pp. 25-7)

This kind of awareness is typical of Achebe. Yet he does not blame it all on the super-powers. In "An 'If' of History" and "Remembrance Day" the burden is shifted back to the society of which Achebe himself is a part. (p. 27)

The next section of Christmas in Biafra, which is called "Poems Not About War," might well have been subtitled: "poems about recovering from war." It chronicles the return of the poet to involvement with his duty to instruct and criticize, proceeding from the tentative words of "Love Song" to the strong assertions of "Answer." In "Love Song" he refers to the time when censorship and repression of the former secessionists are at their strongest and the writers must exercise caution…. (It should be easily seen, however, that his poem about the danger of writing politically dangerous poetry is itself very dangerous politically.)

The voice which speaks in "Answer" is a new and powerful one, however. There is nothing tentative about it when Achebe describes his return to power…. (pp. 27-8)

After ["Beware, Soul Brother"], Achebe returns to the vein of irony which he mines so carefully and so well throughout the book. "NON-Commitment," for example, "celebrates" those "who do nothing," who use "prudence / like a diaphragm." (p. 29)

It should be clear by now that Christmas in Biafra is more than just a book of poems by a novelist. It is accomplished poetry which marks the return to social criticism and literature of one of the most vital voices in English today. These clear, careful lines never deny the complexity of the subjects he writes about or the commitment to society which he feels is an integral part of being a writer. (p. 30)

Since his first novel, Chinua Achebe has been a leader in the growth of that new literature which J. P. Clark, another Nigerian poet, has called "the legacy of Caliban." Thanks to Achebe and men like him, English is no longer merely a Western language expressing Western ideas and ideals. We now have available to us fine works of literature which are also doorways into other cultures, doorways through which we must pass if we wish to truly understand ourselves, our history, and the vast potential for a renewal of the human spirit which non-Western writers can offer. (p. 31)