Patterns of deviation in Niyi Osundare's poetry

Abstract

Poetry is generally marked by deviation. But the question that has bothered scholars is whether there is a difference in this deviation in Modern African/ Nigerian poetry in English as opposed to patterns of deviation in Euro-modernists poetry. A critical stylistic study of the poetry of Niyi Osundare from Nigeria reveals that he has made an exemplary effort to domesticate modern Nigerian poetry in English by adopting a pattern of deviation that is unique and has created an "Alter-Native tradition" in order to achieve its overall goal. Deviation is a linguistic manipulation used by the poet to deviate from norms and conventions of language thereby creating aesthetics and artistic values in literary works especially in poetry for purposeful and meaningful communication. A linguistic usage considered to depart from normal expectations of users of the language. The emergence of Niyi Osundare along with a new poetic tradition is perhaps the height of the concept of deviation in Modern African/Nigerian Poetry from the loins of the Eurocentric poetry. The study adopts the literary stylistic approach of Leech and the Russian Formalists to examine selected poems from Osundare's ten collection of poems. In terms of execution, the study relies on extensive library research involving extensive review of the scholarship on Osundare. The result of our findings is reported in the segments that focus on a practical analysis of individual poems.