A Poetic Exploration of Commonality in Niyi Osundare’s Selected Poems

Niyi Osundare is a second-generation poet whose works focus on socio-cultural and economic issues in his society. Previous studies have critically examined his works from stylistic, linguistic, and pragmatic perspectives, but have paid insufficient scholarly attention to the characters within his poetry, particularly the commoners. The aim of this study is to explore how Osundare uses his poetry to advocate for recognition and fair treatment of the commoners in society, by analysing selected poems from two of his anthologies. This analysis examines how these poems reflect his attitude towards the underdog, explores his thematic concerns, and considers how his work can contribute to societal improvement. The study is anchored on Marxism/Marxist critical approach. The poetic data were selected from Osundare’s Songs of the Marketplace and Village Voices. A careful appraisal and analysis of eight selected poems were carried out–In Songs of The Marketplace there are Excursions I, Excursions II, Excursions III, and Excursions IV while in Village Voices there are Eating with all the Fingers, Eating Tomorrow’s Yam, The Land of Unease and A Villager’s Protest. The findings revealed rural areas as the settings of his poetry, while the common man and common events caught his fancy. It was also discovered that Osundare uses a number of figures of speech and literary devices to solicit attention for these people in order to have a just, wholesome and egalitarian society. He went on tours in the company of other excursionists to survey, access and figure out the conditions of the sickly poor in the land, and could see for himself that these people in this situation need urgent attention from the people in government. These are things average human beings usually overlook daily. The conditions and welfare of the never-do-well of society were his priorities. In his bid to conscientise, raise awareness and awaken the government functionaries from their inertia, the poet deliberately uses satire, lampoon and sarcasm. Furthermore, nativised lexical items, code-switching and indigenized words are employed to foreground the sorry conditions of the commoners. Having examined the selected poems of Osundare in the above-mentioned anthologies and having observed that his poetic thought-pattern can impact society positively the paper concludes that the poet aspires to have an impartial and classless society, thereby qualifying him as a poet of the commonality. The study also recommends that the government should be more aware of its responsibilities. Upcoming poets should also join hands with Osundare in campaigning against unfair treatment of the commoners and all should be more neighbourly in their social dealings.