Exploring Non-Heteronormative Elements in Nigerian Confessional Poetry: A Reading of Nnadi Samuel and Logan February’s Poetry

Abstract

This paper has examines how Nnadi Samuel and Logan February mobilize confessional poetics to articulate queer subjectivity within contemporary Nigerian literature. Through distinct yet intersecting aesthetic strategies, both poets challenge heteronormative constructions of gender, sexuality, and masculinity, demonstrating that poetry can function simultaneously as personal testimony and cultural critique. Drawing from psychoanalytic theory and using a qualitative approach, the paper explores the ways poets’ works exemplify how queer writing in hostile sociopolitical contexts becomes necessarily performative, transforming desire, vulnerability, and memory into modes of resistance.The paper concludes that the two poets demonstrate how poetry can serve simultaneously as personal confession, aesthetic experimentation, and social critique.