Ogaga Okuyade & Edafe Mukoro
A new direction is emerging in contemporary Nigerian poetry. This is seen as poets from that geographical landscape of Africa capitalize on the realities of our present world, especially in light of the traumatic and brutal experiences that accompanied the coronavirus pandemic
1 On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) through its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the global outbreak of COVID-19 as a global health emergency (Pandemic). and its associated panic, risks, global human fatalities, lockdowns and economic dysfunction. This poetic rethinking and musing on the pandemic has become the spark that is inspiring the growing trend of pandemic poetics currently re-energizing the creative landscape of contemporary Nigerian literature. Thus, this essay is approached from a national perspective within the African milieu. It adopts a blend of socio-scientific as well as literary commentary that is anchored in environmental materialism, or rather material ecocriticism, and begins with the premise answering: ‘what is pandemic poetry?’ – Pandemic poems are poetry (oral or written) that assert the musings of poets about a pandemic disease. They register the contemplations of poets about a contagious disease that spreads over a whole country or the whole world, as well as its accompanying devastations and wreckage of human psychology, cultural norms and socio-economic and political activities. Pandemic poems are products of pandemics that are either real or imagined. This is quite crucial because the business of poetry, as with literature in general, deals with both the real (factual) and the imagination. In that respect, we cannot ignore historical pandemics such as the Black Death (1331–1353), Spanish Flu (1918–1920), Asian Flu (1957–1958), and so on, and just recently the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which is the core of the poets’ pandemic ruminations in this chapter.
The responses of African poets, with specific reference to contemporary Nigerian poets, to the coronavirus pandemic have been quite commendable. One is not unaware of the contribution of pandemic poems by some established Nigerian scholar-poets like Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, Abubakar Othman, as well as Ismail Bala with some fifty other poets (writing in English) and another sixteen poets (writing in the Hausa Language) in the bilingual pandemic poetry anthology entitled Corona Blues: A Bilingual Anthology of Poetry on Corona Virus. Still others, such as the renowned Nigerian female poet and one-time joint winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, and newer poetic voices like Ikechukwu Emmanuel Asika, Iquo Diana Abasi (The spoken word poet), as well as the South African spoken word poet Mary Charmain Tshabalala contributed pandemic poems to yet another pioneering pandemic poetry anthology entitled World on the Brinks: An Anthology of COVID-19 Pandemic, which, to quote the words of the critic Isidore Diala, is ‘one of the earliest poetry anthologies published on the subject of the COVID-19 pandemic, not only in Nigeria but in the globe’ (World on the Brinks: 203). And in another essay, the critic appraises ‘preliminary notes on topicality and recent pandemic poetry’ (Preliminary notes: 210).
What is, however, evident is that the novelty of this genre of creativity in Nigerian literature, with its engaging demand on the cerebral sophistication of literary artists, has attracted a number of contemporary Nigerian poets’ dedication to experiment and publish at least a corpus of pandemic poetry, that is, a book of poems, to reflect on the coronavirus pandemic. These poets along with the anthologized ones mentioned earlier are blazing the trail and charting the course of a new direction in contemporary Nigerian poetic discourse. In this respect, the books of poems entitled Narrow Escapes: A Poetic Diary of the Coronavirus Pandemic by Tanure Ojaide and Covid-19 and Other Poems by Kola Eke represent to a very large extent the new trend of pandemic poetry in the contemporary Nigerian poetic landscape. These texts are examined in this chapter demonstrate the private, public and universal concerns that pervade the vulnerabilities of a wider manifestation of our common humanity, using the Nigerian and by extension the African poetic milieu.
Reading the pandemic poems of Ojaide and Eke, one is reminded of the theory of trans-corporeality as postulated by Stacy Alaimo. The theory is actually a subset of environmental materialism, or rather, material ecocriticism. It emphasizes the ‘interconnections of human corporeality with the more-than-human world [of]… material agency’ (Alaimo, 2). The eco-critic asserts, thus:
Trans-corporeality reveals the interchanges and interconnections between bodily natures… [it] opens up a mobile space that acknowledges the often unpredictable and unwanted action of human bodies, nonhuman creatures, ecological systems, chemical agents and other actors (2).
The theory emphasizes ‘the movement across bodies’ because the word ‘trans indicates movement’ (2). At the same time the theory stimulates the scientific understanding behind zoonosis, which has to do with zoonotic pathogens jumping from nonhuman animals to humans, creating a biological disease within the host, known as zoonotic disease. It stretches our intuitions to grasp the reality that ‘the human is always intermeshed with the more-than-human world [which further] underline the… human as ultimately inseparable from the environment’ (2). To make this point clearer, the more-than-human world refers to material agents, invisible matter such as viruses, bacteria, chemical agents and other actors that interact with human bodies, wielding ‘often unpredictable and unwanted action’ that transform and distort bodily natures beyond its genetic self. The movement of the viral agent SARs-COV-2 virus (COVID-19) – a material entity and biological agent – into the human body sparks an ‘unpredictable and unwanted’ biological reaction that destroys the human immune system, activating severe and often fatal health complications such as fever, dry cough and fatigue and aggravating already existing medical challenges within the body systems. These complications arising from ‘interacting biological forces’ form the deadly global onslaught of the pandemic with ‘almost 7 million deaths; causing severe economic upheaval, erasing trillions from GDP, disrupting travel and trade, shuttering businesses, and plunging millions into poverty’ (Ghebreyesus), thus ‘emphasizing the material interconnections of human corporeality with the more-than-human world’, to quote the position of Alaimo for the last time (2).
From the above framework, this essay examines pandemic poetry as an emerging trend and direction in contemporary Nigerian poetry. It is observed that the genre is used to recapture in vivid imagery the pandemic-induced panic and risks, human fatalities and lockdowns that trail the virus outbreak. This is espoused through clever evocation of pictures of global anxiety laced with depression and isolation, debilitating risks that gnaw the hearts of millions in the face of a global outbreak of a public health emergency of international dimensions. Right from the preface of the book of poems entitled Narrow Escapes: A Poetic Diary of Coronavirus Pandemic, henceforth Narrow Escapes, Ojaide considers his responses to the pandemic as a ‘spiritual journey to better understand the meaning of life’ (xv). This thought aligns with his allegiance to his Urhobo culture and tradition, from where he draws his inspiration in the course of his writing the diary. He is emphatic here:
Throughout the period [of the pandemic], I was inspired by my Muse, Aridon, the god of memory and poetic inspiration in my Urhobo culture. These poetic entries in the diary are gifts to me… I had to wake and write – often not sleeping well to take advantage of the inspirational spell. Aridon will not leave me alone and I have to obey the call (xvi).
These ‘gifts’ from ‘Aridon’ form the pandemic musings of Ojaide, and they reveal to a large extent the responses of a poet who is overwhelmingly burdened by the novel realities that confront humankind during the period. ‘Aridon’ seems motivated by the prevailing temperament of the moment to bombard his client’s memory with poetic inspiration and thoughts of the pandemic. In the poem entitled ‘The World Revolves Around a Virus’, Ojaide paints a graphic picture of the overwhelming panic and risk the novel virus infuses in the hearts of people. The irony of the situation is captured through the gripping influence that a ‘tiny’ thing could have and demonstrate to the world:
The world revolves around a novel virus.
Time the minutest of things caught attention.
Worse still, it hedges all into quarantine.
This is terrible, tiny to invisibility
yet poaching the known world into panic-
stricken enclaves for self-preservation.
For a change the smallest of things
Unleashes a stampede. Terrible, really so!
Fear tiny things and their mortal rage!
(Narrow Escapes 1)
There is a reminder here that there is a connection between the world of humans and the beyond-humans. One could sense Ojaide’s subtle brilliance in drawing humanity’s attention to the potentials of material agents that hitherto were relegated to the background by the forces of anthropocentrism. The ‘stampede’ of the coronavirus serves as a rude awakening to the Anthropocene as it ‘hedges all into quarantine’. One is reminded (at the time of the pandemic) of the safety measures put in place by governments, such as quarantine, physical distancing and lockdowns, to curb the spread of the virus. It is therefore important to stress that the viral image in the poem exposes the vulnerabilities of humanity in the face of the ‘invisibility’ as well as the invincibility (as at the present time) of ‘the smallest of things’ in the world. Instructively, the novel virus is cast in the image of a poacher in the poem’s fifth line, as the world becomes a wild that is ‘panic-stricken’ because of the ‘terrible’ onslaught of the poacher. The speaker, therefore, informs us in the poem’s last line about the level of suffocating apprehension that gripped the world about ‘tiny things and their mortal rage’. The irony strikes at the very core of the dilemma of human existence in a world bedevilled by the turbulence of environmental ignorance.
The ‘mortal rage’ of the viral agent assumes another dimension in the poem entitled ‘flood of fire’ (3). Here Ojaide recollects with poetic ingenuity how we ‘wake to grimmer news’ daily to hear of the astronomical rise of human fatalities as the ‘blaze’ of Covid-19 virus ‘spreads beyond the imagination’ (3). In the poem, the suffocating and searing heat of the pandemic is seen extending its reach to every corner of the globe as there is ‘nowhere to escape to/ that’s not already drowned/ in the terrible flood of fire’ (3). The whole poem is cast through a meticulous handling of thermal and aquatic imagery to evoke pictures of the devastating influence of the coronavirus and the associated human casualties that followed.
Ojaide further dwells on the idea of human fatalities in another poem entitled ‘Novel Fatalities’. The entry in the poetic diary is dated 28 March 2020. It reads thus:
The monthly figures of gun fatalities dropped steeply
from the exponential increase of past bloodied decades,
shooters have been paralyzed by the novel fear
of an invisible enemy on the loose in the boroughs
that cares not from what side of the city, west
or south, you have elected to plant your habitation
Gender neutral, it seeks anyone to devour. Hide!
(Narrow Escapes 25)
It is important to note that, as of the time of writing his poetic diary, Ojaide was already in the United States. In fact, he tells us in the preface to the diary that he got back to Charlotte from Nigeria on 8 March 2020 and, by 10 March 2020, ‘the American Government started to take things [the outbreak of Covid-19] seriously after a rather unserious attitude before then’. (Narrow Escape vi). The location of the poet gives us a background understanding of the quoted poem above. Srdjan Ilic asserts that in relation to gun-related fatalities, ‘the United States known for being one of the most heavily armed countries globally… is ranked third in terms of the highest number of gun deaths. This amounts to a staggering 13,001 deaths caused by firearm each year…’ (1). The implication of the first line in the poem draws attention to the ‘novel fatalities’ caused by the novel virus whose ‘exponential increase’ of human fatalities dwarfs that of the ‘gun’. In the poem, it is noticed that the virus’s presence instils fear of paralysis in ‘shooters’ whose boldness is disabled by ‘an invisible enemy on the loose in the boroughs’. They have gone into hiding as the destructive viral agent ‘cares not from what sides of the city, west/or south, you have elected to plant your habitation’. Moreover, the ‘tiny’ thing has no consideration for gender, as its neutrality makes it all the more unpredictable and destructive. In a way, the ‘shooters’ have chosen the option to ‘hide’ as the ‘novel fatalities’ from the ‘invisible enemy’ outdo their gun performance.
Ojaide shows us further in the poem how the ‘novel fatalities’ caused by the ‘braver alien warrior’ who has ‘sworn to bruising or knocking dead all on the way’ skyrocketed ‘to nothing emergency wards ever saw’. From all indications, there is a strategic humility of gun owners ‘in the land of the brave’. One could sense the paralysis of ‘those who own dozens of rifles’ as the ‘Hunters [who] are themselves hunted… throw down gun[s] and run blindly for life’ (25). The virus attack is non-discriminatory with ‘radicals and conservatives, straight and crooked folks’ not spared in the onslaught. It is interesting to note the amount of humor that is generated by the poet in his crafting of this diary entry, even in a period of sober reflection.
The introduction of lockdowns by different countries during the pandemic as a way to curb the spread of the Coronavirus disease also received the attention of Ojaide. The unprecedented measure is captured with feelings of déjà vu in a poem of the same title. Hear him:
I have always walked through
a ghost town; no human sound
and even birds taking a nap
this early that I am up and alone.
And so its nothing new
The quarantine of the already
entombed; indoors a lifestyle
now legitimized by necessity
(Narrow Escapes 12)
In this poem, Ojaide leads the readers by a stroke of his imagination into the streets to underscore vivid pictures of a world under lockdown in a pandemic. The streets are empty ‘with no human sound/and even birds taking a nap.’ It is virtually a world where nature seems suspended and the beauties that are common to the auditory senses become elusive. Besides, there is evidence in the poem that the visual senses of the speaker are witnessing an unprecedented event in human history. He is pictured ‘this early… up and alone’ walking through ‘a ghost town’ made possible by the controlling influence and power of a ‘tiny’ thing. The eyes are far from being satisfied as the hustle and bustle of humanity and other ecosystems are bereft of the breath of life.
The feeling of déjà vu continues in the succeeding stanza as the speaker ruminates on the ‘quarantine’ regulations ‘of the already entombed’. Ojaide’s use of the word ‘entombed’ in this instance is quite suggestive and shocking. It triggers the picture of a tomb in the mind’s eye. By implication, the poet considers the lockdown measure during the pandemic as an institutionalized act of interment of humans in a tomb. The atmosphere of the poem is suffused with the sensation of death, while the analogy takes the mind to the ‘lifestyle’ of the ‘entombed’ whose circumstances are ‘legitimized’ by death. In the same manner, staying ‘indoors’ becomes ‘a lifestyle now legitimized by necessity’. No wonder the poet further asserts in another place in the diary that ‘those who seek individual privacy/now have got their sovereign spaces’, by virtue of ‘self-isolation’ through the agency of coronavirus (6).
In another poem entitled ‘what they said’, Ojaide takes us to Africa – specifically Abuja, Nigeria – to visualize the lockdown that trailed the pandemic there:
No power could keep the millennial congregation out, they said
Today is Sunday and Dunamis Church is closed for worship
Folks said the traditional market never closes or get postponed
Agbarho’s biweekly main market shutdown on this market day
(Narrow Escapes 27).
The ‘Dunamis Church’ (The Glory Dome) situated at Airport Road, Abuja, Nigeria is reputed to be the largest church auditorium in Africa, with a 100,000 seating capacity. It is a mega church with a ‘millennial congregation’, and every Sunday of the week it is packed full with worshippers. But on this ‘Sunday’, the speaker appeals to our visual senses to see that The Glory Dome is ‘closed for worship’ due to the lockdown policy of the Nigerian government to curb the spread of Coronavirus. Airport Road has become a ‘ghost town’ as the ‘Dunamis Church’ is ‘shutdown on this market day’. The might of a ‘tiny’ thing has overcome the ‘power’ that boldly proclaims that the ‘millennial congregation’ cannot be kept out from the mega church. This is quite interesting as it underpins the uncommon fear that pervades human responses during the pandemic.
Moreover, another interesting insight from the poem is the speaker’s infusion of the market image from his indigenous Agbarho community of Urhobo kingdom. There is evidence here about the commercialization of the religious centre as ‘the traditional market’ that ‘never closes or get postponed’. The critical reader could see that the ‘traditional market’ is deprived of its bragging rights and rendered comatose by the deadly viral agent. It is unimaginable to fathom the disruption of the system brought about by the influence of the virus. The ‘unimagined catastrophe’ has thus shifted our perceptions about traditional thinking patterns and lets us know that ‘established order cannot always remain sacrosanct’ (Narrow Escapes 27).
For Eke, poetry is more than a ‘spiritual journey’, for he is more ‘interested in how his society functions and operates’. (7). Reading his book of poems on the pandemic, henceforth Covid-19, it is observed that his message is the same as Ojaide’s – Pandemic-induced panic/risk, human fatalities, lockdowns and so on – yet the poet’s dexterous handling of imagery fascinates the imagination in a rather unique way. It grants us better understanding of the significance of material agents in a vastly interconnected world of diverse ecosystems. In the poem entitled ‘fisherman’, Eke uses imagery from the world of fishing to suggest his thoughts on the pandemic-induced panic/risk in the world. Here Covid-19 is captured as a ‘fisherman’ that
Catches both rich and
Poor oysters
with his fish trap
…
Casting his net into
The sea of death
Catches many crabs
(Covid-19, 56)
The implication of the poem’s introductory lines suggest that coronavirus is not subject to sentiments. Its ruthless aggression is palpable to all and sundry. There is a feeling of panic in the world of both the rich and the poor as the novel virus de-recognizes class stratification. The reader of this poem needs to move his/her imagination into the world of fishing to recognize the degree of panic that envelopes humanity during the pandemic. It has been discovered that the ‘alarm pheromones’ known as ‘Oligosaccharides of Chondroitin-4-sulfate and Chondroitin-6-sulfate’ is responsible for panic signals in some fish as they ‘skitter, dart or dash, while others freeze or go into hiding, yet others rise to the surface, even jumping out of the water’ (Stensmyr and Maderspacher 185–186). These behavioural patterns in the world of fish are critical to understanding humanity’s responses during the threat of the pandemic. The poet further heightens the level of panic in the second stanza to the level of death through a deft use of metaphor laced with aquatic imagery. One could perceive that the whole arena is suffused in the deluge of ‘death’ and confusion, as the ‘fish trap… catches many crabs’. Similarly, Eke shows us with graphic skill in another part of the poem how the ‘fisherman conveys numerous lobsters/to isolation centers/with his trawler’, as well as ‘searches the/bottom of rivers/using his dragnet/infesting fishes with coronavirus’ (56). This is a poetic recreation of the victimization of millions of people by the deadly virus. By all stretch of imagination, the novel virus exudes dominance and confidence as it spreads panic, fear and death across the world.
Another area that attracts attention in the reading of Eke’s pandemic poems is the picture of human fatalities. The poem entitled ‘No respecter of persons’ conveys vivid images:
Ambassador plenipotentiary of
Death
strikes with the
First born plague
…
Ambassador of pains
And woes
knitting the cardigan of
Death and Destruction (Covid-19, 17).
The title of this poem registers the poet’s sense of appreciation for biblical allusion. The expression is drawn from the book of Acts 10:34: ‘… then Peter opened his mouth, and said of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons…’ (King James Version). This reference gives vent to the indiscriminate onslaught of COVID-19 on humanity. Another interesting feature of the poem is the speaker’s use of the ambassadorial image to espouse Coronavirus as a representative from the sovereign of death. In this instance, the emissary is conferred with ‘plenipotentiary’ powers to unleash the diplomatic weapon of ‘death’ on the citizens of the host country. In another meticulous use of language, Eke elucidates the idea of human fatalities during the pandemic with another shrewd use of biblical allusion. This time the reader’s mind is taken to the ten plagues of Egypt in the Bible and most specifically the ‘first born plague’, which is the last plague to be unleashed against the Egyptians. The reference is drawn from Exodus 11:4-6. One must concede that the scourge and savagery of the death-laden virus is seen through the poet’s recourse to biblical analogy.
It is an established fact that there was a ‘great cry’ across the world as the ‘Ambassador plenipotentiary’ wreaked havoc as human fatalities from the United States to India as well as from Brazil through Africa to China reached a devastating level. In the same way that there was wailing and gnashing of teeth in biblical Egypt, humanity across the world was dazed by the scale of death-laden attacks instituted by the emissary. The spread of death across the length and breadth of the world knows no bounds as it strikes with lightning speed that is beyond human comprehension. By extension, one could recognize the ‘pains/and woes’ in the hearts and souls of millions of people who are victims of the brutal envoy. In fact, it is noticed in the poem that the ‘ambassador’ is further pictured in a rather metaphorical manner as a knitter of the ‘cardigan of death’. He is seen using his knitting tools such as knitting needles, stitch markers, stitch holders as well as scissors to interlace and intertwine yarn loops, creating stitches of patterns of ‘death and destruction’. The visual appearance of the knitwear therefore becomes a cartographical display of ‘death and destruction’ on the world’s map.
The introduction of lockdowns by different governments of the world likewise did not escape the poetic radar of Eke in his pandemic poems. The disruption of human activities by the policy is captured with striking images in the poem entitled ‘Covid-19 II’:
Covid-19
Like army worm
Has consumed the grain
Crops of academic activities
Covid-19
Like army worm
Has stolen the
Leaves and stem of Learning
(Covid-19, 14).
This time, the poet moves the reader’s imagination to the field of agriculture to underpin how the outbreak of the virus and the consequent introduction of lockdown to curb its spread disrupt ‘academic activities’. The ‘army worm’ is a pest of the noctuidae family that destroys grain crops such as corn, rice, wheat and grasses. Its outbreak behaviour is similar to the invasion of an army, resulting in the destruction of crops within weeks. This image forms the dominant thought of the poet’s espousal of COVID-19 lockdown here. In the poem, Eke shows us how the pandemic-inspired lockdown disrupts ‘academic activities’ in the same way that an ‘army worm’ destroys the entire crop in a grain farm. There is a total lockdown of the grain farm as the ‘army worm’ invades the territory with devastating speed. The worms leave a trail of destruction behind as they feed voraciously on the grain crops in the farm. The analogy is quite interesting as it grants the critical reader of the poem graphic pictures of the disruption of the academic calendar as well as other human activities during the pandemic. Moreover, the use of repetition in the poem is deliberate to emphasize the outbreak of the pandemic and the debilitating character of the virus. The dominance of the virus is further sustained in the poem both as an incapacitating consumer of human activities and as a plunderer of the ‘stems of learning’.
Closely related to the above insight is the fact that the lockdown not only affected the ‘plants of learning’ and the ‘premises of learning’ but also rendered them ‘stunted’ as well as ‘dearth of internodes’ (14). The poet further extends the catastrophes of the lockdown into the world of business and commerce. In this case, businesses and corporate organizations are captured as grain crops facing damaging attacks from the outbreak of the virus. One could see through the mind’s eye how these ‘cobs of factories’ are gnawed and masticated by the ‘mandible and maxillae’ of the lockdown (14). The image strikes at the heart of the death of commercial activities. From all indications, the lockdown is not only disruptive of commercial activities, but it functions as a structural and systemic element for economic downturn and dysfunction. It is said that ‘the pandemic damaged more than a billion people’s livelihoods in its wake’ through job losses triggered by the lockdown while ‘people in lower-income countries with large informal economies suffered in the largest scale’ (Ray 1)
Drawing from the idea of economic dysfunction due to the lockdown, one could appreciate the poet’s handling of imagery in another poem entitled ‘Deforestation of workforce’. The poem emphasizes job losses during the COVID-19 lockdown in the most unique and profound manner:
Deforestation of workforce
cutting down the plants
on account of
Covid-19 lockdown
And the pandemic
Snowballs
Deforestation…
Defoliation of trees
(Covid-19, 27).
It strikes the imagination interestingly to recognise what Romanus Egudu refers to as the ‘dislocation of language’ in the above quoted extract (7). In the poem, there is the exploratory use of words to align with the job losses during the lockdown. The word ‘deforestation’ is gifted with potentialities as its use triggers the imagination to grasp the layoffs that pervade the ‘Covid-19 lockdown’. The picture becomes more vivid when one moves to an imaginary forest to witness the ‘cutting down’ of trees. The imaginative brilliance is further heightened as the ‘cutting down of plants’ becomes analogical for the job losses during the lockdown.
In the poem, the word ‘deforestation’ is repeated to stress the massive level of job layoffs, with livelihoods strangled of the basics and millions descend into the poverty bracket. The grove of commercial activities is depleted of its luxuriant ‘trees’, rendering a once forested arena almost empty of greens as ‘deforestation’ and ‘defoliation of trees’ take centre stage. As the lockdown persists from the first into the second and the third waves of the pandemic, many businesses and organisations ‘fell down trees’, while others ‘deflower some plants’ as they attempt to stay afloat. Without a doubt, the impact of the lockdown on millions and billions of people is quite catastrophic, and we must appreciate the sensitive manner in which the events are presented by the poets.
In conclusion, it has been the focus of this essay to establish that a new direction, known as pandemic poetics, is emerging in contemporary Nigerian poetry. The idea is drawn from the recent coronavirus pandemic and its associated devastation of human lives and cultural, socio-economic and political activities across the globe. The essay shows that Ojaide and Eke are leading the trend with their published books of poems on the pandemic and thus re-shaping the temperament of the contemporary Nigerian poetic landscape. Reading their pandemic poems, one notices that there is the injection of fresh poetic form (the diary genre) through the re-clothing of ideas and dexterous handling of language to capture the pandemic-induced panic, human fatalities as well as lockdowns. The poets’ ruminations on the pandemic seem to have stretched their imaginations beyond familiar territories such as politics, social inequality, environmental pollution, feminism as well as bad leadership, which hitherto had dominated their poetic idiom. It is hoped that with the path cleared and the foundation laid, other poets on the national and continental levels of Africa will join the march of pandemic poetry, thereby expanding the corpus and frontiers of pandemic literature and writing in African literature today and in the future.
Works Cited
Alaimo Stacy. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington Indiana UP, 2010.
Bala, Ismail and Khalid Imam, eds. Corona Blues: A Bilingual Anthology of Poetry and Coronavirus. Kano: Whetstone Publisher, 2020.
Diala, Isidore. ‘A Review of Ikechukwu Otuu Egbuta and Nnenna Vivien Chukwu, eds. World on the Brinks: An Anthology of Covid-19 Pandemic’. In Africa Literature Today, 41 Africa Literature Come of Age, (2022): 198–203.
——— ‘Preliminary Notes on Topicality and Recent Pandemic Poetry’. TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE 59.3 (2022): 210–227.
Egbuta, Ikechukwu Otuu and Nnenna Vivien Chukwu, eds. World on the Brinks: An Anthology of Covid-19 Pandemic. Lagos: City Way Books, 2020.
Egudu, R.N. The Study of Poetry. Ibadan: UP, 2007.
Eke, Kola. Covid-19 and Other Poems. Ibadan: Kraft books, 2021.
Ghebreyesus, Tedros Adhanom. WHO Director-General Opening remarks at the Media Briefing. 5 May, 2023. Who.int.
Ojaide, Tanure. Narrow Escapes: A Poetic Diary of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Dever: Spears Books. 2021.
Ray, Julie. ‘COVID-19 Put More Than I Billion Out of Work’. GALLUP. 3 May, 2021
Ilic, Srdjan. ‘Gun Death by Country 2023: Behind the Numbers’. South West Journal. 4 August, 2023
Stensmyr, Marcus C., and Florian Maderspacher. ‘Pheromone: Fish Fear Factor’. Current Biology 22.6 (2012): 183–186.