ABSTRACT
In this paper, I am interested in interrogating memories of marginality as represented in selected poems inspired by the River Niger and River Benue, which are two of the most important bodies of water in Africa and Nigeria and whose history intersects with coloniality and the evolving postcolonial angst. The study relies on the tenets of postcolonial memory and postcolonial intertextuality for its theoretical and methodological tools which are found to be adequate in shouldering the burdens of textual analysis in the sense that postcolonial memory allows for the interrogation of issues of marginality in the postcolony, while postcolonial intertextuality aids in the critique of the points of convergences and possible divergences in the selected poems. The findings of the research, as can be gleaned from the analysis, reveals that the poets – Alex Ogoh, Oke Iroegbu and Kayod5 Kayode – use the Niger and Benue rivers as vehicles for conveying their thoughts on some of the recent historical occurrences in their milieu, as well as utilising the agency of the rivers in making poetic statements that touch on the human condition in the postcolony. The paper has also paid attention to how the river tropes in the selected poems align with their subject matter. On the whole, the paper does not only contribute to the emerging discourses on postcolonial marginality and how it connects with human memory as a whole, but it also engages the long tradition of river poetry in world literature.
Keywords: River Niger, River Benue, African poetry, marginality, Postcolonial Memory, Nigerian poetry.
