A Comparative Study of Environmental Struggles in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide and Marilyn Dumont of First Nations (Canada)

Abstract

Earlier studies on the Niger Delta poetry of Nigeria and First Nations poetry of Canada have focused primarily on the environmental and minority concerns in the individual literature of these two regions. The environmental concerns in these two literary traditions are a result of the minority status of the regions with hegemonies depriving the indigenous people of control in the ways their landscapes and waterscapes are engaged. This present study takes these issues to a comparative level, investigating how the two marginal groups are reacting to the hegemonies that pushed them to the peripheries and the aesthetics the selected poets employ to combat local and global environmental changes in their collections. Tanure Ojaide’s Niger Delta Blues and Other Poems, and Dumont Marilyn’s The Pemmican Eaters are comparatively explored with the focus of exposing the similarities and differences in the portraitures of their environments. This study finds that the selected poets from both regions depict the primordial symbiotic relationship that existed between humans and non-humans in their environments, especially prior to the commencement of mineral resources exploitation in their regions. Poems from both regions compare the harmonious past with the disharmony of the present to raise global awareness of the problems caused by capitalist agents in the exploitation of the environment. Similarly, oral traditions are depicted as viable aesthetics which promote the harmonious human-environment relationship. The selected collections of poetry have political undertones and represent the people’s collective aspirations, it is against this that they recreate the myths around their activists and heroes to document the history and raise environmental consciousness among the people. The poets of the two literary traditions compared, however, differ in the following areas: the poets of First Nations are more impressionistic in depicting environmental struggles while Niger Delta poets rely on metaphors and images to portray their environmental struggles. The study concludes that the environmental and minority struggles portrayed in the selected collections show the pursuit of environmental justice for their marginalised regions, and by extension, it is a contribution to the global environmental discourse.