Poetics of resistance: ecocritical reading of Ojaide's 'Delta Blues & Home Songs' and 'Daydream of Ants and Other Poems (original) (raw)
Related papers
2010
ABSTRACT Nigerian written poetry spans about six decades, from its inception, and has been a medium of engagement, decrying colonialism, cultural imperialism, socio-economic oppression and political tyranny. Tanure Ojaide's poetic enterprise follows in the footsteps of this mould of interdiction, which can be called resistance poetics. Particularly, his collections of poetry, Delta Blues & Home Songs and Daydream of Ants and Other Poems, are illustrations of ecocritical literature.
2010
The paper endeavours to establish the centrality of ecocriticism in the poetry of Tanure Ojaide. It will be argued in this paper that Ojaide's poetry negates ecological imperialism, a capitalist practice that destroys the periphery's natural world. In Ojaide's poetics, there is an illustration of the nature and strategies he employs to actualise resistance literature-essentially premised on ecocritical literature. Ecocritical literature or ecocriticism is a form of literary criticism that considers the nature of the relationship existing between literature and the natural environment. Ojaide's raison d'être for this artistic preoccupation is simple: the environmental and ecological predation in the Niger delta region of Nigeria, which is his native country. Therefore, since Ojaide's poetics intersects with the realities of ecological imperialism, it is thus a dependable barometer to gauge Nigeria's environmental/ecological dissonance for sustainable development.
2011
Tanure Ojaide is known for his ability to use poetry in descrying homespun and international domination, as well as challenging environmental injustice. The essentials of his poetics in the poetry collections to be discussed deepen the footprints of this artistic philosophy. Thus, in the collections Delta Blues & Home Songs and Daydream of Ants and Other Poems, there is an illustration of the nature and strategies Ojaide employs to actualise a basic commitment: transcending the contradictions of ecological imperialism, which is premised on eco-poetry. Ojaide’s rationale for this poetic engagement is fathomable given the backdrop of his environment. His environment and ecology are under siege—routinely pillaged by the multinationals in partnership with the political class and systematically brutalised through the instrumentality of ‘‘ecological imperialism’’. Therefore, since Ojaide’s poetry resonates with Nigeria’s philosophico-materialist, environmental and political conjunctures i...
An Ecocritical Evaluation of Tanure Ojaide's Daydream of Ants and Other Poems
There has been paucity on the deployment of ecocriticism theory in modern Nigerian poetry works. Thus, Ecocriticism, also called environmental literary criticism calls for an in-depth context reading from the human to the environmental as well as understanding the ways that dynamics of suppression, manipulation, and domination are mutually reinforcing. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates Tanure Ojaide's Daydream of Ants and Other Poems (1997) from the perspectives of ecocriticism. An ecocritical interpretation of Daydream of Ants and Other Poems provides valuable insights concerning how issues of toxicity, contamination, and annihilation of natural resources especially of dispossessed communities intersect. The extent to which the Nigerian rulers and multinational conglomerates have deliberately manipulated Nigeria's natural resources as sources of economic profit translates to environmental annihilation, underdevelopment, displacement, insurgency, and migration. Taken together, the study illuminates that environmental representations in Ojaide's Daydream of Ants and Other Poems conveys the need for sustainable relationship between man and other life forms.
Aesthetics of Resistance and Sustainability: Tanure Ojaide and the Niger Delta Question
2009
Abstract The paper endeavours to establish the centrality of ecocriticism in the poetry of Tanure Ojaide. It will be argued in this paper that Ojaide's poetry negates ecological imperialism, a capitalist practice that destroys the periphery's natural world. In Ojaide's poetics, there is an illustration of the nature and strategies he employs to actualise resistance literature–essentially premised on ecocritical literature.
Revisiting Environmental Challenges in Niger Delta: A Survey of Tanure Ojaide’s Poetic Historicism
The International Journal of Humanities & Social Studies, 2020
The core Niger Delta region is defined as comprising the area covered by the natural delta of the Niger River and the areas to the East and West which also produce oil. The Niger Delta region has been in the news for some decades owing to the increasing exploitative activities inherent in the region, which have left the area impoverished, degraded and devastated than it was in the early times. It is truism that man is inseparable from his immediate environment because his relationship with his surrounding makes up his entire being. Unfortunately, the destruction of the natural habitat surrounding man is caused by man himself by the sole acts of creating and recreating his environment. In essence, the process of exploiting developing worlds is responsible for the environmental and ecological damage done to the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, which has been made prostrate following the several incidences of oil spills, loss of mangrove forests, depletion of fish populations, water hyacinths invasion, natural gas flaring amongst others caused by the activities of oil multinational companies. The resultant effect of the aforementioned is the upsurge of ecological imperialism which has given rise to underdevelopment, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, environmental degradation and a lot more. Corroborating the above, Ekpu opines that: The story of the Niger Delta is the story of a paradox, grinding poverty in the midst of vulgar opulence. It is the case of a man who lives at a bank of a river and washes his hands with spittle. It is the case of a people who live on the farm and die of hunger (Ekpu 10). These challenges give nature poets like Ojaide the spur as a social critic to imaginatively set the stage on painting the picture of the Niger Delta region realistically through the diverse experiences of the people in his poetry collections. His poetry therefore has generated serious academic researchers from literary scholars interpretingthe ills of environmental degradation with a view to finding lasting solutions for the Niger Delta and Nigeria as a whole. The present study aims at over-viewing the collective body of Ojaide's poetry vis a vis some contributions of scholars in this perspective. The purpose is to interrogate Ojaide's level of consistency to the course of the exposition of environmental challenges within Niger Delta and Nigeria for over four decades of his literary career. The work also aims at establishing
Niger Delta Poetics and the Politics of Environmental Rebranding
Journal of Economics, 2017
The Niger Delta extends over 70,000 km and makes up 7.5 percent of Nigeria's land mass. The region has experienced the bad side of mineral exploitation with the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities with only a meager share of the dividends. This study delves into how literary artists particularly poets in Nigeria have articulated their dissent against the excruciating age-long suppression. While many scholars have looked into the Niger Delta issue from socio-political angle, an ecological platform has been purposively chosen, beaming the search light on Albert Otto's Letters from Earth, Tanure Ojaide's Tale of Harmattan and Sophia Obi's Tears in my Basket. This research work is based on ecocriticism, a theoretical framework that engages nature, looking into the untoward cultivation of natural resources. Niger Delta poetry therefore exposes hard core challenges on environmental degradation with oil pollution, gas flaring, desert encroachment, animal extinction, acid rain and sea pollution subsumed. The poets in their different poetic input unite in adopting a fearless stance as worthy activists as they mediate between mother earth and her age-long traitor. This study use intellectual resources toward reversing all actions enhancing despoliation of the earth. Hence, it squall for immediate rescue of the hitherto perishing valuables nature enables.
International Journal of Language and Culture, 2021
One critical area that the poetry of Niyi Osundare and Tanure Ojaide addresses is nature— the physical environment. Hence, their poetry is classified as eco-poetry. Although studies on the poetry of Niyi Osundare and Tanure Ojaide have focused on traditional aesthetics, political power, exile and African experience (Ojaruega, 2015; Tsaaior, 2011; Nwagbara 2008, 2010; Okunoye, 2011) sufficient studies have not been done on their defense of natural environment. This study examines how their poetry celebrates nature and how they are used to caution the imminent danger of mismanagement of the physical environment. Thus, Niyi Osundare’s The Eyes of the Earth and Tanure Ojaide’s Delta Blues & Home Songs are studied to provide insights into the forms, patterns and concerns of their ecopoetry. The study leverages eco-criticism—the study of the relationship between literature and the natural environment—as its theoretical insight. The paper contends that though these poets celebrate nature’s beauty and potentials, their poems chastise exploitative activities of man and urge moral and social change in favor of the natural environment. It equally argues that the poets’ particular environments influence the form and style of their poetry, maintaining that there are more environmental challenges in the contemporary world of Tanure Ojaide which his poetry reflects in contrast to Niyi Osundare’s. Keywords: Environment, Nature, Eco-criticism, Nature-poetry/Eco-poetry
Nigerian written poetry spans about six decades, from its inception, and has been a medium of engagement, decrying colonialism, cultural imperialism, socio-economic oppression and political tyranny. Tanure Ojaide's poetic enterprise follows in the footsteps of this mould of interdiction, which can be called resistance poetics. Particularly, his collections of poetry, Delta Blues & Home Songs and Daydream of Ants and Other Poems, are illustrations of ecocritical literature. Ecocriticism in literature is a form of aesthetics that concerns itself with the nature of relationship between literature and the natural environment. Ojaide considers the ecocritical art of poetry as a kind of public duty, which he owes to the Nigerian people, to expose, reconstruct, and negate the actualities of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The author argues that since Ojaide's poetry intersects with the realities of ecological imperialism, it is thus a dependable barometer to gauge the Nigerian environmental/ecological experience.
An Ecocritical Reading of Selected African Poems
KENTE - Cape Coast Journal of Literature and the Arts, 2019
This paper discusses some ecocritical ideas in selected poems by Kofi Awoonor, Kofi Anyidoho and the Negritude poets David Diop and Birago Diop. Drawing on postcolonial ecocriticism theory the paper focuses on ecocritical symbolisms and their ramifications in order to show how African poets attend to the environment, community and modernity’s many flaws. The consideration of the Negritude poems in this study stems from the fact that Negritude Literature in general and the selected poems in particular have been examined mainly within the context of Black African identity and the antiracist effort in general. The paper demonstrates that ecological motifs or symbols are deployed by some African poets to express life, survival, and nostalgia.