Eco-human engagement in recent Nigerian poetry in English

Abstract

With particular reference to the work of Nnimmo Bassey and Ogaga Ifowodo, this article discusses the ongoing engagement of Nigerian poets with issues of ecology. It argues that, for these poets, issues of ecology are largely bound up with the fate of the human beings who depend for their survival on their environment, through fishing and farming. These poets emerged in the 1980s with a strong sense of commitment to their immediate environment, which, in their view, had been brutalized by the national government and corporate bodies, and so their concerns are identified as part of a larger crisis over leadership.

Keywords:

• environment
• Nigerian poetry
• survival
• Niger Delta
• Nnimmo Bassey
• Ogaga Ifowodo

Notes

1. The Niger Delta region of Nigeria refers to the geographical area covered by Akwa Ibom State, Bayelsa State, Cross River State, Delta State, Edo State and Rivers State.

2. Mikhail Bakhtin, in theorizing dialogism, points out that one of the qualities the novel has, which makes it more dialogic than any other genre of writing, is polyphony. See The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays.