New Poetics in the Poetry of Contemporary East African Poets

Abstract

East African poetry has over the years enjoyed considerable growth and development. This commendable development has attracted critical appraisals, with critics explicating the trend through which the evolution of this literary tradition has taken. However, adequate attention has not been paid to the new poetics of the contemporary East African poets. This study, therefore, examined the new poetics the new generation of East African poetry. The study adopted post colonialism as a critical tool, for the critical appraisal of the poetry of two Anglophone East African poets. It selected Hurling Words at Consciousness and Give me Room to move my Feet by Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Mildred Kiconco Barya. The methods selected for analysis are literary and critical interpretations of the texts. The possible blend of cultural differences; rejection of conventionalised language models, investigation of social-rigidity in pre-colonial culture, are prominent thematic concerns discussed in the works of the poets. The collections are testaments of the creative deployment of ideological hybridity in the poetry of the contemporary phase of East African poetry. The thematic preoccupations explicated in the collections, depicts the ontological relevance of the contemporary poetry of East African literary tradition.