Third-Generation Nigerian Poetry as Recreation of Nigeria's Social and Political Fabric

Abstract

This article examines how third-generation Nigerian poetry has been used to engage Nigerian postcolonial experience and agency. It explains that the poetry generation was ushered in in 1988 and has been divided into two parts. While the first part is the early part of the generation between 1988 and 1999, the second and later part is between 2000 and the present. The poetry produced in the early part is concerned with the postcolonial Nigerian military experience while the later part engages with the Nigerian civil rule experience. This article focuses, therefore, on the poetry produced between 1988 and the present (in 2025) as representative of the early and the later parts of third-generation Nigerian poetry. While some poems including those of Ezenwa-Ohaeto are discussed as representative poetry of the early third-generation Nigerian poetry, some poems including those of Hyginus Ekwuazi are analyzed as representative of the later part of third-generation poetry. This article refects on the conditions in which the poetry was produced and how it has been used to respond to the Nigerian military experience that ended in 1999 and the ensuing decay in Nigeria’s democratic and political space.. The article concludes that though the poetry produced by the older generation of Nigerian poets responded to a similar postcolonial situation, the poetry produced by the third-generation Nigerian poets has become the prominent voice in this period, provide a clear picture of what is happening in postcolonial Nigeria.