THE POET AND THE ENVIRONMENT A STUDY OF TENURE OJAIDE’S Delta Blues AND OGAGA IFOWODO’S The Oil Lamp
Abstract
The study seeks to understand the ways that environmental concerns and the phenomenon of oil production in the Niger Delta are captured in contemporary literary representations. In the work, I enlist several works, five poetry collections to investigate and analyse the different ways they engage with the effects of oil extraction as a form of violence that is not immediately apparent.
I propose that the texts, in very different ways, articulate these experiences by concatenating social and environmental concerns with representations of the oil encounter to produce a petro-literary form which inflects and critiques the ways in which oil extraction, in all its social and environmental manifestations, inscribes a form of violence upon the landscape and human population in the oil sites of the Delta. I suggest that the texts articulate a place-based, place-specific form of petroculture. They emphasis the notion that the oil encounter in the Delta is not the official encounter at the point of extraction but rather the unofficial encounter with the side-effects of the oil extraction. The texts, in very different ways address similar concerns of violence as an intricate feature in the Delta, both as a physical, spectacular phenomenon and as a subtle, unseen category. They conceive of violence as a consequence of the various forms of intrusion and disruption that the logic of oil extraction instigates in the Niger Delta. I suggest that the form of eco-poetics that is articulated gives expression to environmental concerns which are marked off by an oily topos in the Delta. I maintain that in projecting an artistic vision that is sensitive to environmental and sociocultural questions, the writings that we encounter from this region also make critical commentary on the ontology of oil. The texts conceive the Niger Delta as one that provides the spatial and material template for envisioning the oil encounter and staging a critique of the essentially globalised space that is the site of oil production.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
Since prehistory, literature and the arts have been drawn to portrayals of physical and human environmental interactions. The modern environmentalist movement as it emerged first in the late nineteenth century and in its more recent incarnation, in the twentieth (20th) century, gave rise to a rich array of fictional and non-fictional writings concerned with humans’ toward the natural world. Only since the early 1990s, however, has the long standing interest of literature studies in these matters generated the initiative most commonly known as “ecocriticism”, an eclectic and loosely coordinated movement whose contributions, thus far, have been most visible within its home discipline of literature, but whose interests and alliances extend across various art forms and medium (Ezeochi, 2008).
Therefore, it could be said that art essentially, is committed to practical social realities, therefore, writers (or critics) adopt different literary approaches and strategies to register their messages. The artist is saddled with the task of practically assessing the contemporary situation in society with the mind of identifying and proffering solutions to the different prevailing contradiction situations.
Accordingly, literature and environmental studies commonly known or called “ecocriticism” or environmental criticism, in analogy to the more general term literary criticism, comprise and eclectic, pluriform and cross disciplinary initiative that aims to explore the environmental dimensions of literature and other creative mediums in a spirit of environmental concern not limited to any one method or commitment. Ecocriticism begins from the conviction that the arts of imagination and the study thereof – by virtue of their grasp of the power of word, story and image to reinforce, enliven and contribute significantly to the understanding of environmental problem: the multiple forms of ecodegradation that afflict planet earth today.With this view, ecocriticism concurs with other branches of environmental humanities such as humanistic geography, among others, in holding that environmental phenomena must be comprehended and that today’s burgeoning array of environmental concerns must be addressed qualitatively as well as quantitatively. This agreement is, therefore, fundamental to the remediation and breakthrough as well as strengthening of policy implementation which is the impetus of creative imagination, vision, will and belief. Therefore, the combination of poetry and the experiment of literature and other mediums, can offer unique resources for activating concern and creative thinking about the planet’s environmental future. However, by themselves (only poetry), creative depictions of environmental harm are unlikely to free societies from lifestyles that depend on radically transforming ecosystems. But reflecting on works of imagination may prompt intensified concern about the consequences of such choices and possible alternatives to them (Wikipedia).
Ecocriticism is, therefore, the study of literature and the environment from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature. Some ecocritics brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situations. Ecocriticism is a broad approach that is known by a number of other designations such as: “green studies”, “ecopoetics” and “environmental literary criticism”.
In comparison with other political forms of criticism, there has been relatively little dispute about the moral and philosophical aims of ecocriticism, although its scope has broadened rapidly from nature writing, romantic poetry and canonical literature to take film, television, theater and animal stories and narratives as well as an extra-ordinary range of literary texts. At the same time ecocriticism has borrowed methodologies and theoretically informed approaches liberally from other fields of literary, social and scientific study (Buel).
1.1 Background of the Study
Accordingly, this work seeks to examine the social and environmental injustices through Ojaide’s Delta Blues and Ogaga Ifowodo’s The Oil Lamp. The research sets out to examine how the two poets’ works are maximally opposed to inhumanity which has become the recurrent index in the lives of man and the insensitivity that has adorned the attitude of the oppressors in their relationships with the environment. Ojaide and Ifowodo, therefore, by implication of their poems call for social and attitudinal change from the oppressive tendencies unleashed against the environment through their poetry.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
In response to the persisting environmental crisis occasioned by man’s activities of depleting of earth’s physical and aerial layers, this research seeks to examine the inherent problem of environmental exploitation. Such exploitation may include: gas flaring, environmental pollution, indiscriminate waste disposal, air and water pollution, deforestation and other forms of environmental destruction. This research, using Ojaide’s Delta Blues and Ifowodo’s The Oil Lamp will also pay close attention to the elements and imagery which describe these forms of exploitations in the two texts as the yard stick to solving this problem.
1.3 Aims and Objectives
The aims and objectives of this research include:
To identify Ojaide’s and Ifowodo’s poetry as viable tools for achieving environmental justice.
To examine Ojaide’s and Ifowodo’s style and techniques in presenting environmental problems.
To justify the suitability of ecocritical theory as a tool for interpretation of literary works such as poetry.
1.4 Methodology
For the purpose of this research, selected poems from Ojaide’s Delta Blues and Ifowodo’s The Oil Lamp shall constitute the primary source of data from which analysis will be done. The library will serve as the major source of information for this research, while books, journals, reviews and notes on related areas shall be adequately consulted to further strengthen the level of information used for the research. Additionally, the internet will also be consulted to further enrich the contents of the research.
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THE POET AND THE ENVIRONMENT A STUDY OF TENURE OJAIDE’S Delta Blues AND OGAGA IFOWODO’S The Oil Lamp
