Gabriel Okara, J. P. Clark and a number of poets from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria have enga... more Gabriel Okara, J. P. Clark and a number of poets from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria have engaged with the ecological devastation of the oil-rich Delta in their poetry. However, Tanure Ojaide appears to be the most prolific and activistic of contemporary poets of the region; his poetic aesthetic charts a different approach to understanding the unabated ecocide in the Niger Delta. This paper examines Ojaide's poetics of fusing two aesthetic practices: oral traditions-native to Urhobo people of the Niger Delta region-and the modern scribal form to evoke a peculiar petro-lore in the collection Songs of Myself 1. How does folkloric tradition frame Ojaide's poetry? How does his engagement with folklore engender an aesthetic of petro-lore particular to the Delta? This essay will draw on ecocritical theories to examine these questions as well as analyze the poet's eco-concerns in Songs of Myself, in order to demonstrate the poet's unflinching engagement with environmenta...
This paper interrogates human relationships with the natural environment using the saskatoon berr... more This paper interrogates human relationships with the natural environment using the saskatoon berry as a “habitat guide,” a concept borrowed from the Indigenous perspectives of the Blackfoot, Papachase Cree and the Metis. As a settler on Treaty Six and Metis territory no. 4 – the traditional lands of various Indigenous Peoples including the Papaschase Cree, Blackfoot, Nakota Sioux, Ojibwe, Metis and others – my research engages with personal experience and specific Indigenous knowledge systems and worldview(s). This paper is divided into three sections: the first examines engagement with the natural environment and makes a case for stewardship and kinship as eco-conscious ethics. The second section, based on an oral interview with Papaschase Cree educator and scholar Dwayne Donald, builds on traditional ecological knowledge to provoke thoughts on multispecies relationality. In the final section, I offer a close reading of poems by two Metis poets to emphasize kinship and ethical rela...
Gabriel Okara, J. P. Clark and a number of poets from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria have enga... more Gabriel Okara, J. P. Clark and a number of poets from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria have engaged with the ecological devastation of the oil-rich Delta in their poetry. However, Tanure Ojaide appears to be the most prolific and activistic of contemporary poets of the region; his poetic aesthetic charts a different approach to understanding the unabated ecocide in the Niger Delta. This paper examines Ojaide's poetics of fusing two aesthetic practices: oral traditions-native to Urhobo people of the Niger Delta region-and the modern scribal form to evoke a peculiar petro-lore in the collection Songs of Myself 1. How does folkloric tradition frame Ojaide's poetry? How does his engagement with folklore engender an aesthetic of petro-lore particular to the Delta? This essay will draw on ecocritical theories to examine these questions as well as analyze the poet's eco-concerns in Songs of Myself, in order to demonstrate the poet's unflinching engagement with environmenta...
This paper interrogates human relationships with the natural environment using the saskatoon berr... more This paper interrogates human relationships with the natural environment using the saskatoon berry as a “habitat guide,” a concept borrowed from the Indigenous perspectives of the Blackfoot, Papachase Cree and the Metis. As a settler on Treaty Six and Metis territory no. 4 – the traditional lands of various Indigenous Peoples including the Papaschase Cree, Blackfoot, Nakota Sioux, Ojibwe, Metis and others – my research engages with personal experience and specific Indigenous knowledge systems and worldview(s). This paper is divided into three sections: the first examines engagement with the natural environment and makes a case for stewardship and kinship as eco-conscious ethics. The second section, based on an oral interview with Papaschase Cree educator and scholar Dwayne Donald, builds on traditional ecological knowledge to provoke thoughts on multispecies relationality. In the final section, I offer a close reading of poems by two Metis poets to emphasize kinship and ethical rela...
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