TRAUMA AND TRAUMATOGENIC INSCRIPTIONS IN NIGER DELTA POETRY

Abstract

The discourse of environmental degradation captures monumental losses which culminate in trauma, and this largely informs the content as well as the form of Niger Delta poetry. Existing studies on critical engagements with ecological issues in Niger Delta poetry have emphasised the physical destruction and pollution of the environment, with little attention paid to the subject of trauma in the poetry. This study was, therefore, designed to examine trauma and traumatogenic inscriptions in selected eco-conscious poetry collections from the Niger Delta region. This was with a view to determining the insignias of trauma induced by ecological disaster and the literary devices deployed in foregrounding this relationship. Stef Craps’ model of Trauma Theory served as the framework, while the interpretive design was used. Tanure Ojaide’s Songs of Myself: Quartet (SM), Sophia Obi’s Tears in a Basket (TB), Albert Otto’s Letters from the Earth (LE), G’Ebinyo Ogbowei’s marsh boy & other poems (mb), Nnimmo Bassey’s I Will Not Dance To Your Beat (IWNDTYB) and Ibiwari Ikiriko’s Oily Tears of the Delta (OTD) were purposively selected owing to the insignias of trauma embedded in them. The texts were subjected to literary analysis. Trauma and traumatogenic inscriptions are portrayed from the perspectives of triggers and manifestations. The triggers are denoted through imprinted pain and sadness, anxiety and grief (SM, TB, LE, mb, IWNDTYB and OTD), rage (SM, TB and mb), agitation and frustration (OTD), and despair (LE). These triggers are manifest through psychic torture and emotional distress at disconcerting memories (SM, TB, LE, mb, IWNDTYB and OTD), depression (SM, TB, mb, IWNDTYB and OTD), delusion (SM, TB, LE, mb and OTD), and illusions (TB, LE, mb and OTD). They are also depicted through suicide and suicidal thoughts (mb and IWNDTYB), self-estrangement and loneliness (SM), feelings of estrangement and insomnia (TB), mental confusion and violence (mb), amnesia (IWNDTYB), psychic numbing and hallucination (OTD). Stylistically, enjambment and apostrophe are predominantly used to emphasise the mental distress experienced by the poet personas and, by extension, the Niger Delta populace (SM, TB, LE, mb, IWNDTYB and OTD). The collections are also saturated with repetition to draw attention to grief (SM, TB, LE, mb, IWNDTYB and OTD), intertextuality to depict the people’s contrasting conditions and misery (SM and OTD), and rhetorical questions to emphasise pain (SM, TB, LE, IWNDTYB and OTD). Metaphorical language and imagery are used to inscribe agonising experiences and pains (SM, TB, LE, mb, IWNDTYB and OTD); while irony (TB and IWNDTYB) and oxymoron (SM, TB, LE, mb, IWNDTYB and OTD) are used to stress the contradictions that result in trauma. These tropes mimic the effects of trauma and bear out its inscriptions. However, the series of traumatic experiences are presented in phenomenal emotional language (SM, TB and LE) and steeped in resistance undertone (mb, IWNDTYB and OTD). Niger Delta eco-conscious poetry inscribes trauma as a stealthily ongoing disaster in the region, and the trauma is catalysed by environmental degradation. Therefore, poetry is a suitable medium for relating traumatic experiences in literary form.