Landmarks of Poetic Renaissance in the Works of Selected African Poets

Abstract

The study is a survey of critical perspectives on a selection of modern African poets who concerned themselves with the socio-political problems in their various local setups and countries. The commonest thing to all of them is the belief and practice in the poet’s activist role in the African polity. This group of writers believes that a radical approach to literature is a solution, which they think must consist of an awareness which would eventually culminate in a revolution. In diverse but related exploration of the poetic medium, they evolved avenues of enforcing functionality to their poems. Using stylistic features of radicalism-commonly believed to of the then popular Marxian metaphor they indict their governments that always operate on the naivety of the populace, who are usually victims of deceit by the pretentious and brassy-voiced agendas and promises of these “hollow-men” whose corrupt dispositions would never allow them see beyond their personal interests. It is for such a reason that these selected poets have taken up the challenge of answering the oppressors on behalf of the voiceless majority. It is a renaissance that has shed a palpable landmark on the tone, pitch and intensity of the poetic genre.