Political Poetry in Contemporary Nigerian Literature : the Example of Remi Raji's Poetry

Remi Raji is one of the irrepressible poetic voices in the decades of military dictatorship in Nigeria, spanning the early 1980s to the late 1990s. With a social vision that is hinged on what he refers to as “connecting poetry to nationalism,” his poetry captures the socio-political realities of the era. But, more importantly, Raji’s poetry, given the political consciousness that underpins it, performs two functions: one, it attacks the “military emperor” and his acolytes who are responsible for the despoliation of Nigeria; two, it sympathises with the oppressed populace and offers them an optimism to enable them keep dreaming even in the face of tyranny. This research is an exploration of the political theme in Raji’s poetry with emphasis on its social functions. Raji has published four volumes of poetry, namely, A Harvest of Laughters (1997), Webs of Remembrance (2001), Shuttlesongs: America – A Poetic Guided Tour (2003) and Lovesong for My Wasteland (2005). The methods of interpretation used in this work are Marxism and New Historicism. Raji’s political poetry belongs to the domain of protest literature and it is appropriate that our exegesis of it is done through the Marxist theory. New Historicism is deployed to account for the historical realities on which Raji’s poetry is based. The conclusion reached in this work is that Raji’s poetry fits into the canon of committed literature in Nigeria because it succeeds in historicising, with a great deal of artistry, the decades of military oppression in Nigeria, and exemplifies the engagement of new Nigerian writers in political theme. It is
hoped that this study will be a contribution to the critical interpretation of new Nigerian writing which has suffered a dearth of criticism.