SOCIAL REALITIES IN MARIA AJIMA'S POEMS OF SANITY

Abstract

This study is concerned with the various perspectives of society captured by Maria Ajima in her collection of poems titled Poems of Sanity (2000). The theoretical framework used is the Sociological Literary Criticism. This approach to the study of literature is a conviction that literature is a social product wherein the people's thoughts and feelings are shaped by the cultural life of society. The research methodologies are semantic interpretation and inter stanzaic analysis to arrive at the relationship between the selected poems and contemporary society. The data constitute poems and stanzas which reflect socio-political and economic realities at content and aesthetic levels. This study is paramount to scholarship because it dwells on a new phase in Nigerian poetry which is poetry by female poets. Poetry written by women was hitherto sparse in relation to their male counterpart. This research dwells on the contemporary issues and functional artistry employed by the female poet reviewed. The findings are that themes by contemporary female poets are divergent and sociologically relevant in Africa. This study concludes that Ajima is a socially conscious poet who is involved with contemporary issues bedevilling Africa.