The Song of Songs: Focalising Love and the PublicPersonal Poetics in Remi Raji’s Poetry

Abstract

Much of the existing critical scholarship on Remi Raji’s poetry appraised the poet’s portrayal of his angst against oppression and the  oppressors of the people. His poetry has often been read within the poetics of rage and social discountenance. Sule’s projection of Remi  Raji as an angry poet has enjoyed the dominant estimation by which Raji’s poetic oeuvre is engaged. This study examines four of Raji’s  collections of poetry— A Harvest of Laughters, Lovesong for my Wasteland, Sea of my Mind, Webs of Remembrance and Gather my blood  Rivers of Song, exploring the poet’s loveworld, with a view to underscoring how a focus on the tropes of rage, discontentment and  disillusionment in the collections mask the poet’s dominant presentations of lovesongs for the land, a mistress, nature, and others. While  it is right to say that Raji’s poetry is overtly political, it is more accurate to relate that there is more to his poetry than the political theme. We see in Raji’s poetic oeuvre a fine balance between the poet’s preoccupation with the sociopolitical realities of the nation state and the representations of his loveworld, extolling that all-too-human other side of life. This study calls for a broadened conception of Remi Raji’s  poetry, beyond the aesthetics of rage, angst and disillusionment to the poet’s depiction of the capacity of love to herald hope, and  ultimately right the wrongs in the postcolony.