Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Poetry in the performative tradition is not new in Africa, but performance poetry in English, sometimes accompanied by a mixture of African languages, which lends itself easily to digital media, is relatively new. Performance poetry, also known as contemporary oral poetry, is an offshoot of modern African poetry, although it still retains fragments of the oral tradition. Performance poetry or ‘spoken word’ has found its way into the gamut of today’s popular culture. Thus, this paper investigates the poetics of performance poetry in the new media or social media such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc., in view of its global reach and teeming audience. Anchored on the functionalist theory of oral literature and postcolonial criticism, the paper examines the poetics of the works of two popular spoken word artists – Dike Chukwumerije and Maryam Bukar Hassan. This study interrogates the content, techniques, visual and aural aesthetics, as well as the perception and reception of their poetry, which ultimately lends credence to the study of performance poetry in the digital media and poetry as a whole.
Authors: Bizuum Yadok, Gbenga Joseph
Institution: Federal University of Education Pankshin
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7208812625