Nation, power and dissidence in third generation Nigerian poetry in English

Sule E. Egya

Description

Nation, Power and Dissidence in Third Generation Nigerian Poetry in English is a theoretical and analytical survey of the poetry that emerged in Nigeria in the 1980s. Hurt into poetry, the poets collectively raise aesthetics of resistance that dramatises the nationalist imagination bridging the gap between poetry and politics in Nigeria. The emerging generation of poetic voices raises an outcry against the repressive military regimes of the 1980s and 1990s. Ingrained in the tradition of protest literature in Africa, the third-generation poetry is presented here as part of the cultural struggles that unseat military despotism and envisage a democratic society.

Informations

• Publié par: NISC (Pty) Ltd
• Date de parution: 12 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781920033460
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Dedication
Fondly for: Anyalewa Emmanuella, Oyigwu Desmond and Egya Nelson. Love, love, and more love.
About the Series
The African Humanities Series is a partnership between the African Humanities Program (AHP) of the American Council of Learned Societies and academic publishers NISC (Pty) Ltd * . The Series covers topics in African histories, languages, literatures, philosophies, politics and cultures. Submissions are solicited from Fellows of the AHP, which is administered by the American Council of Learned Societies and financially supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The purpose of the AHP is to encourage and enable the production of new knowledge by Africans in the five countries designated by the Carnegie Corporation: Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. AHP fellowships support one year’s work free from teaching and other responsibilities to allow the Fellow to complete the project proposed. Eligibility for the fellowship in the five countries is by domicile, not nationality.
Book proposals are submitted to the AHP editorial board which manages the peer review process and selects manuscripts for publication by NISC. In some cases, the AHP board will commission a manuscript mentor to undertake substantive editing and to work with the author on refining the final manuscript.
The African Humanities Series aims to publish works of the highest quality that will foreground the best research being done by emerging scholars in the five Carnegie designated countries. The rigorous selection process before the fellowship award, as well as AHP editorial vetting of manuscripts, assures attention to quality. Books in the series are intended to speak to scholars in Africa as well as in other areas of the world.
The AHP is also committed to providing a copy of each publication in the series to university libraries in Africa.
* early titles in the series was published by Unisa Press, but the publishing rights to the entire series are now vested in NISC
AHP Editorial Board Members as at January 2019
AHP Series Editors:
Professor Adigun Agbaje * , University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Professor Emeritus Fred Hendricks, Rhodes University, South Africa
Consultant:
Professor Emeritus Sandra Barnes, University of Pennsylvania, USA (Anthropology)
Board Members:
1 Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Institute of African Studies, Ghana (Gender Studies & Advocacy) (Vice President, African Studies Association of Africa)
2 Professor Kofi Anyidoho, University of Ghana, Ghana (African Studies & Literature) (Director, Codesria African Humanities Institute Program)
3 Professor Ibrahim Bello-Kano, Bayero University, Nigeria (Dept of English and French Studies)
4 Professor Sati Fwatshak, University of Jos, Nigeria (Dept of History & International Studies)
5 Professor Patricia Hayes, University of the Western Cape, South Africa (African History, Gender Studies and Visuality) (SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory)
6 Associate Professor Wilfred Lajul, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda (Dept of Philosophy)
7 Professor Yusufu Lawi, University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of History)
8 Professor Bertram Mapunda, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of Archaeology & Heritage Studies)
9 Professor Innocent Pikirayi, University of Pretoria, South Africa (Chair & Head, Dept of Anthropology & Archaeology)
10 Professor Josephat Rugemalira, University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of Foreign Languages & Linguistics)
11 Professor Idayat Bola Udegbe, University of Ibadan, Nigeria (Dept of Psychology)
* replaced Professor Kwesi Yankah, Cental Univerity College, Ghana, co-editor from 2013–2016
Published in this series
Dominica Dipio, Gender terrains in African cinema , 2014
Ayo Adeduntan, What the forest told me: Yoruba hunter, culture and narrative performance, 2014
Sule E. Egya, Nation, power and dissidence in third-generation Nigerian poetry in English , 2014
Irikidzayi Manase, White narratives: The depiction of post-2000 land invasions in Zimbabwe , 2016
Pascah Mungwini, I ndigenous Shona Philosophy: Reconstructive insights , 2017
Sylvia Bruinders, Parading Respectability: The Cultural and Moral Aesthetics of the Christmas Bands Movement in the Western Cape, South Africa , 2017
Michael Andindilile, The Anglophone literary-linguistic continuum: English and indigenous languages in African literary discourse , 2018
Jeremiah Arowosegbe, Claude E Ake: the making of an organic intellectual , 2018
Romanus Aboh, Language and the construction of multiple identities in the Nigerian novel , 2018
Bernard Matolino, Consensus as Democracy in Africa, 2018
Babajide Ololajulo, Unshared Identity : Posthumous paternity in a contemporary Yoruba community, 2018

Originally published in 2014 by Unisa Press, South Africa under ISBN: 978-1-86888-759-0
This edition published in South Africa on behalf of the African Humanities Program by NISC (Pty) Ltd, PO Box 377, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa www.nisc.co.za
NISC first edition, first impression 2019
Publication © African Humanities Program 2014, 2019 Text © Sele E. Egya 2014, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-920033-44-6 (print) ISBN: 978-1-920033-45-3 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-920033-46-0 (ePub)


Project Editor: Tshegofatso Sehlodimela Book Designer: Monica Martins-Schuld Copy Editor: Shakira Hoosain Typesetting: Monica Martins-Schuld Indexer: Tanya Barben


The author and the publisher have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of copyright material. Should an inadvertent infringement of copyright have occurred, please contact the publisher and we will rectify omissions or errors in any subsequent reprint or edition.
Contents
A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
I NTRODUCTION
CHAPTER TWO
T HE Q UESTION OF G ENERATION
Literary Tradition, Influence, Anxiety
CHAPTER THREE
P OETICS AND S UBJECTIVITY : M AKING P OETRY S ERVE H UMANITY
Afam Akeh: This is Poetry as She Breathes
Abubakar Othman: Wordsworth Lied
CHAPTER FOUR
D ISSIDENT D IRGE : E LEGY A GAINST THE O PPRESSOR
Olu Oguibe: I am Bound to this Land by Blood
Chiedu Ezeanah: I Saw Generals Hack the Tracks with Convulsive Steel
CHAPTER FIVE
M YTH AND M ATERIALISM: D EPLOYING M YTH AGAINST THE M YTH OF P OWER
Maik Nwosu: I am Taunted by Covenants of Misery
Onookome Okome: Everything Smells of the Death of Dawn
CHAPTER SIX
F EMINIST A CT: F EMINISING THE S TRUGGLE A GAINST THE O PPRESSOR
Toyin Adewale: In this Land we Love with Pain
Unoma Azuah: I will Defy the Rage of the Rain and Erode No More
CHAPTER SEVEN
E CO -H UMAN E NGAGEMENT : F ACING THE O PPRESSOR OVER THE N IGER D ELTA
Nnimmo Bassey: Of Burst Bellies and Pipes
Ogaga Ifowodo: Oil is My Curse
CHAPTER EIGHT
C ONCLUSION : E XILE AND THE T ROPE OF D ISPERSAL

W ORKS C ITED
I NDEX
Acknowledgements
The manuscript for this publication was prepared with the support of the African Humanities Program fellowship, established by the American Council of Learned Societies and supported financially by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. I remain grateful. I am also grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, which gave me funding which enabled me to stay at the Institute of Asian and African Studies in the period between 2009 and 2011, where I developed most of the ideas contained in this book.
Parts of this research have appeared as articles in the following journals with these titles: ‘Historicity, Power, Dissidence: The Third-Generation Poetry and Military Oppression in Nigeria’ in African Affairs , 111.444 (2012): 424–441; ‘Eco-Human Engagement in Recent Nigerian Poetry in English’ in Journal of Postcolonial Writing , 48 (2012): 1–12; ‘Poetry as Dialogue: A Reading of Recent Anglophone Nigerian Poetry’ in E-Cerdernos CES , 12 (2011): 75–92; ‘The Aesthetic of Rage in Recent Nigerian Poetry in English: Olu Oguibe and Ifowodo Ogaga’ in Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society , 39.2 (2011): 99–114; ‘Imagining Beast: A Critique of the Images of Oppressor in Recent Nigerian Poetry in English’ in Journal of Commonwealth Literature , 46.2 (June 2011): 345–358; ‘Art and Outrage: A Critical Survey of Recent Nigerian Poetry in English’ in Research in African Literatures , 42.1 (Spring 2011): 49–67.
During the course of this research, I have interacted productively with the following scholars: Prof. Flora Veit-Wild, Prof. Susanne Gerhmann, Prof. Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger, Prof. Ibrahim Bello-Kano, Prof. Babatunde Ayeleru, and Prof. Kolawole Gyoyega. I am grateful to them for their contributions.
My sincere thanks to the AHP team, especially Barbara for her prompt response and encouragement; and to my editors at the Unisa Press for their patience and understanding.
1
Introduction
Poems are not mirrors and they are not lamps, they are social acts…
— Jerome J. McGann, Social Values and Poetic Acts: the Historical Judgement of Literary Work
[L]iterature involves our deepest responses to the facts of human existence and intervenes in those areas of experience where we assume consciousness of our situation with regard to others and to the world.