• Israel Muvindi

  Author

this survey navigates the African poetic landscape. It interrogates the major
concerns of African poets, analyses thematic trends and quizzes the sensibilities of
these artistic works. It came out that African poetry is founded on the appreciation of
black power and culture as portrayed in Negritude poetry. It was then established that
the most outstanding voice in African poetry is one of protest; that was mainly
necessitated by European imperialism, so it came as a tool for mass mobilisation and
conscientisation. Later on, the analysis inevitably moved to the battle front where
protest poetry ‘degenerated’ into open struggle verses, characterised by heavy
imagery and graphical war symbolism. Unfortunately, instead of celebrating
independence, African poets got disillusioned by their new political systems, so they
wrote expressing this sentiment. It sounds like going back to the trenches as a result of
the climatic scenario brought about by independence. However, the survey has found
a ray of hope in love poetry whose subject is resilient, and thrives throughout different
historical moments of oppression, struggle and disillusionment. African poetry is not
prophecy of doom, after all!

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