Social Issues in the Poems of Twentieth-Century West African Writers

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West African poetry has depicted many aspects of the life of the community, and this is reflected in the odes of many West African poets. Because his poems are directly related to their own lives and the lives of people in society. West African Arabic poetry gave great importance to this aspect, and poets discussed it in their divans. Social poetry is to convey the life of society in all its forms and aspects, and to touch on the lives of people in various fields and the issues that concern them. From this point of view, this research -by using the socio-historical method - aims to examine the details of the social life of West African society and to reveal the social relations and traditions between individuals by examining poetic texts on social life. The importance of this work is due to the fact that it contributes to the recognition of some aspects and different manifestations of social life in West Africa by examining the poems of poets who touch on social aspects. This research answers two questions: What are the most important social issues addressed by the regional writers? Does social poetry reflect the reality of African society as it is? In the research, many social issues, including the positive and negative phenomena that the local poets dealt with in their poetry divans, were mentioned. Among the most important positive themes, there are behaviors that are appreciated in society, such as benevolence to parents, respect for science and teachers, fraternity and social solidarity, justice, and social assistance. As for the negative issues and problems that social poetry struggles with, these include poverty, unemployment, bribery, injustice, corruption, drug abuse, and betrayal. The research is limited to Senegal, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Benin from 16 countries in the West African region. Because the Arabic poems written in these countries differ from those written in the rest of the region in terms of quantity, quality, and style. It contains poems of prominent poets from these countries. These include Malian poets Yacob Doucoure and Amr Abdulatif Sacko, Senegalese poets Tijan Gay, Davud Adekeleken, and Tijan al-Hac Mansur Sy, Burkina Faso poet Ghanami, Ghanaian poet Mohamad Rashad, Benin poets Sulaiman Maysuna and Musa Babatandi, and Niger poet Ali al-Ashly. There are many distinguished poets as for the reasons for the preference of these poets; they gave more importance to social issues compared to other poets in the region and frequently mentioned these issues. However, his poems were written in very plain language and syllabic meter.