Overview and Tracking of Modern African Poetry

Tracking the beginning of modern African poetry has remained amystery to many students of Literature. This work, therefore, aimsto demystify the history of modern African poetry, redefining Africanpoetry, identifying the leading voices of colonial and post-independenceAfrican poetry as well as examining the major thematic preoccupationsor the ‘Africaness’ of African poetry of the written expression. The papertraces the history of African poetry and establishes the recentness of modernAfrican poetry. The New Historicist theoretical approach is adopted in thiswork so as to trace the past and connect with the present. It concluded thatIbadan and in particular the University of Ibadan played a significant rolein the development of modern African poetry. Also, political conflicts andsocio-economic issues of post-colonial African states appeared to be the majorconcerns of contemporary and new generation modern African poetry.