Marxist Ecopoetics in the Poetic Creation of the Niger Delta

As one of Africa's largest wetland ecosystems, the Niger Delta serves as a central arena for the creative practices of its poetic community. The poetry of three successive generations of poets in this region embodies distinctive and profound ecological-political insights. The first generation employs the metaphorical system of water folds to allegorize the alienation of nature, establishing an imaginative framework that reflects environmental estrangement. The second generation advances this exploration by utilizing the topological structures of land mazes to portray ecological violence, revealing the complex interactions between human activity and environmental degradation. The third generation further evolves this trajectory through the reconstruction of oil-ravaged landscapes, transforming depictions of ecological devastation into visions of ecological revolution. This iterative engagement with environmental ruin has gradually coalesced into a poetics paradigm marked by resistance and critical reflection. These poetic works not only illuminate the distinctive ecological perception of African poets but also expand the practice of Marxist Ecological Poetics in the Global South, offering a literary critique of oil capitalism while envisioning alternative pathways for ecological thought and cultural intervention.