Abstract

This essay is a thematic and stylistic exploration of Otobotekere’s new collection of poems antithetically entitled 17-Day Paradisal Tourist Picnic (Kidnap Experience Poems). This collection has not been subjected to critical intellectual discourse or analysis and therefore, needs such critical attention. The study expectedly draws data from the primary text and adopts the qualitative text analytic methodology. The study is steeped towards thematic analysis with some spattering of linguistic and literary stylistic analysis the content of a text is usually couched in the language and stylistic scrutiny is productive in revealing the meaning of the content of the text. The author is an acclaimed nature poet of the renaissance inclination. However, the study reveals that instead of the traditional romanticism that eulogizes nature, freedom of the mind and relationship with ordinary things of nature and the environment, there is a palpable shift of interest to such psychological phenomena as insecurity, fear, anxiety, pain, prayers and thankfulness to God the creator who is given, more or less, the epicenter of his consciousness. Apart from the linguistic and literary stylistic devices found in the poems, the author also seems to have unconsciously adopted the psychotherapeutic expressive writing therapy technique as a tool for achieving post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study concludes with a suggestion of an appropriate title: “Half of a Month in Captivity” in which the poet seeks to redeem and restore his sanity and humanity by dwelling in the psychotherapeutic poetic narrative.

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