Nature and Environmental Security in Philip Onuoha’s “Song for my Mother”

Abstract

This paper critically examines the centrality of nature and environmental security in the poetry of Philip Onuoha. It deploys the theoretical framework of Ecocriticism to appraise the selected poems from Onuoha’s Song for my Mother. The literary theory of Ecocriticism which was foretold through a seminal article by William Rueckert in 1978 was given breath in the latter part of the 20th century by Cherryl Glotfelty. Since then, studies in nature and environmental issues have developed in geometric dimensions. Critics foresee an unimaginably large harvest of literary productions on nature and the environment due to the daily vitiation of nature and its consequences to the human world. From time immemorial, literature has always served as a credible pendulum that gauges the activities of man. This paper, therefore, adds to knowledge forms because it underpins the seriousness of nature in the survival of mankind. Its uniqueness derives from the fact that the poems examined are Children’s works. The age of childhood is an age of innocence hence it veritably serves as a fertile period for the indoctrination of nature ideals. The methodology deployed in the study is qualitative as relevant symbols, exerts and images in the verses are romanticized in the light of their natural aesthetics. The aim principally is for child readers of the works to be taken in by nature and its verities. The psychological effect of this inspires them to grow up to become conscious of the ideals of nature and the environmental security it guarantees. The study thus takes a refreshing approach in the areas of nature and environmental security by examining the representation of nature in selected Children’s poems. It further opens vistas into the centrality of literature in the global fight against environmental security.