The Artist and His Art: An Approach to Selected Poems of Niyi Osundare

This paper is an attempt to access selected poems from the Nigerian poet, Niyi Osundare. Osundare has been variously labelled by critics who have popularized his poems as either specially crafted to use nature-centred tropes to marshal home his thesis; or artistically framed to trigger propagandist responses from readers. With both critical standpoints in mind the present writers attempt the reading of notable poems of Osundare to reveal his creative attitudes vis a vis language use and his adaptation of cultural and natural tendencies. The essay concludes that Osundare sees poetry as a special art form that could be multi-facettedly deployed to preach the message that the other aspects of the literary art (drama and fiction) have not adequately captured.