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Niger Delta Research Digest

(NDRD)

A journal of the Institute for Niger Delta Studies (INDS)

Niger Delta University, Nigeria.
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Niger Delta and the Poetics of Power: Ibiwari Ikiriko, G.’Ebinyo Ogbowei and Obari Gomba

Pages 32-70
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17319083
Keywords: Niger Delta Poetics of Power Ibiwari Ikiriko G.’Ebinyo Ogbowei Obari Gomba

Abstract

The poetry of Ikiriko, Ogbowei and Gomba in various ways versifies the socio-economic, political and environmental concerns bedevilling Nigeria’s Niger Delta. These poets belong to a third generation of writers involved in capturing, through poetry, the changing fortunes of the crude-oil rich region—a geopolitical space that has greatly inspired recent Nigerian literature in all genres. A close reading of their poetry reveals that the issues the listed poets are preoccupied with have also been the subject of a variety of non-literary writing as well. Given the view that a writer draws much of his materials from society, the study deploys the close reading ethnographic technique of the New Historicism to examine the common themes which underpin the poems under study. In addition, part of the study’s methodology involves the juxtaposition of literary and non-literary texts to give appropriate cultural context to the analysis. Thus, the study demonstrates that the selected poems form aspects of discourses on the Niger Delta, in the wake of petroleum exploration and the impact on the people’s way of life.

How to Cite

Harvard Style

Stephen, B.O. (2017), "Niger Delta and the Poetics of Power: Ibiwari Ikiriko, G.’Ebinyo Ogbowei and Obari Gomba", in Niger Delta Research Digest Vol. 12, No. 1, pp32-70, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17319083.

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