Traumatogenic metaphors and religious motifs in Niger Delta ecopoetry

Abstract

The Niger Delta has been a site of trauma as a result of decades of non-stop environmental pollution. Existing studies have explored the socio-political and economic implications of pollution and its quotidian impact on the lived experiences of the people. This study, however, focuses on ecopoetry as a genre that reflects, and reflects on, the trauma of ecological degradation and the spiritual implications for the Niger Delta. By doing so, it explores traumatogenic metaphors and religious motifs in ecopoetry from the region. This informs the purposive selection of two Niger Delta poetry collections—Tanure Ojaide’s Songs of Myself: Quartet (2015) and Stephen Kekeghe’s Rumbling Sky (2020). The poems are subjected to critical literary analysis, undergirded by Jacob Olupona’s perspective of ecology of religion and Stef Craps’ trauma theory, to examine how the impact of environmental degradation on the mental health and spiritual well-being of the people is poetically addressed. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘African ecologies: literary, cultural and religious perspectives’, edited by Adriaan van Klinken, Simon Manda, Damaris Parsitau and Abel Ugba.)