The poet as the conscience of his people: A reader response approach to Echezona Ifejirika and Ikechukwu Asika’s poetry

Abstract

This paper explored Ifejirika, Echezona’s The Fulani Herdsmen
and Other Poems and Asika, Ikechukwu’s Operation Python
Dance. The study depicted how the poets successfully used their
poems to sensitize and inform the society (the South East of
Nigeria) on issues of national concerns especially as it concerns
leadership. In doing this, emphasis was laid on the relationship
between subject and actions in the poems, the leaders and the led,
etc. The frame work of Humanism and Marxist theory of
exploitation were applied in the study. The selected poems
carefully mirrored the happenings in Nigeria as it concerns war,
deprivation, marginalization, operation, and segregation. The
paper, therefore, suggested that there is an urgent need to
incorporate into national discourse issues raised by Ifejirika,
Echezona and Asika, Ikechukwu on how to address Nigeria
problems.