The pristine past, the plundered present: Nature as lost home in Tanure Ojaide’s poetry

Abstract

Tanure Ojaide is a major voice of post-war Nigerian poetry in English, distinguished by his recourse to the orature of his birthplace. Ojaide takes orature as a locus of an aesthetics that is cognizant of the arts and politics of rural people, especially in the face of a modernity-driven, viperous establishment. His poetry’s dependence on orality, I argue, implies its rootedness in nature. But far more crucial to this article is the contention that nature in Ojaide’s poetry is not merely evoked as an aesthetic strategy — an embellishment of what many have regarded as an overwhelming political theme in his poetry. Nature (the natural environment, biodiversity, flora and fauna) is also thematized as home — now a lost home in the face of modernity and petrodollar global capitalism. In the context of postcolonial ecocriticism, I attempt a reading of his poetry to point out that the nature (environment) of the Niger Delta region where the poet hails from is, just like the people inhabiting it, a victim of exploitation and oppression caused by large-scale oil exploration in the region; and it is no longer the pristine home it used to be.

Indigenous consciousness and life interconnections: an ecofeminist study of Tanure Ojaide’sSongs of Myselfand Ebi Yeibo’sA Song for Tomorrow

“…The aim is to incorporate ecological issues as part of African's colonial struggles. Hence, in his exploration of Ojaide's poetry, Egya (2018) posits that:…”

“…The Niger-Delta environment “stretches along the Atlantic Coast and several miles inland; it is crisscrossed by a network of rivers and density of mangrove forests” (Gomba, 2013, p. 239) of South-South Nigeria. Although this environment is rich in both aquatic and arboreal lives, exclusive attention is largely given to humans rather than to other living forms in African environmental criticism (Caminero-Santangelo, 2014; Egya, 2018; Iheka, 2018). These observations reveal a kind of ambivalence or ecological indifference where Indigenous belief in human and non-human connectivity is seen as a puzzle.…”

“…The aim is to incorporate ecological issues as part of African’s colonial struggles. Hence, in his exploration of Ojaide’s poetry, Egya (2018) posits that:Postcolonial ecocriticism offers a theoretical context for a broad-based critique of environmental issues as an organic part of socio-political and cultural issues in postcolonial narratives. Both postcolonialism and ecocriticism are fields of studies that advocate what one might see as political action in pursuance of justice through social and environmental discourse.…”

“…Animals and plants roast to death while fish and other forms of aquatic lives float dead on poisoned oily rivers in this plagued environment. Humans are faced with sociocultural and economic difficulties from oil pollution (Egya, 2018; Epstein & Selber, 2002; Gomba, 2013; Iheka, 2018). This environment belongs to a people whose Indigenous consciousness on the human–environment relationship is informed by their cultural belief that life is an interconnection.…”

Tanure Ojaide on the poet: Preliminary notes on a writer’s poetics

“…Much of the critical attention paid to the work of the distinguished Nigerian poet, Tanure Ojaide, has focused on his exploration of the despoliation of the natural environment by multinational oil companies in the Niger Delta, and the consequent impoverishment of the indigenous populations (Nwagabra, 2010; Ojaruega, 2014; Egya, 2018). Some attention has equally been paid to Ojaide’s deployment of the techniques of indigenous Urhobo literature (Aiyejina, 1988; Ojaruega, 2015).…”