Art and Outrage: A Critical Survey of Recent Nigerian Poetry in English

In 1988, the anthology Voices from the Fringe: an ANA Anthology of New Nigerian Poetry edited by Harry Garuba introduced a crop of new Nigerian poets. Each of the poets featured was new in the sense that he/she had not previously published any collection. It was a period of military oppression in Nigeria. Some of the new poets have been writing, and have become considerably known on the Nigerian literary scene today. This essay is an attempt to map out their artistic endeavors, the tradition from which they emerge, the social context of their poetry, and their collective contribution to the discourse of nationhood in Nigeria during the struggles to unseat military despotism. The essay contends that although this “new” poetry is not fundamentally different from the poetry that emerged in the post-independence era in Nigeria, it has its peculiar features as an artistic response to a particular period of anomie.