Crude Waves Of The Delta

Crude Waves of the Delta, a book of poetry set in Nigeria’s Niger Delta area, mirrors the gory environmental experiences of ancestral dwellers in a region doomed, as it were, by oil boom. The raconteur, physically and psychologically cast assail turbulent waves of pollution and distress, portrays some irksome currents of extreme devastation of the fauna and flora, distressing experiences of denial and general poverty, as well as angst reactionary and violent appropriation of rent. Quite like the “mythical” global flows, the gruesome complicity of the national political class and the exploiting multinational oil companies, these shocking currents pervade every verse much like, well, the numerous oil wells in the wetlands. “Crude Waves of the Delta is an epic poem in waves formatted as a letter in dramatic monologue. …The confrontational stance this poetry of challenge embodies defies the authority of a rampaging injustice,”–-Chinyere Nwahunanya, PhD, Professor of English, Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria. “Chris Onyema uses the discourse of ecological trauma as frame for well-horned craft, compelling language, diverse in its register and power of suggestiveness, to elevate the patently absurd waves of “oil curses”- brambles of ecological exploitation, mindless pollution, poverty, carnage and angst reactionary to robust poetry,”—Onookome, Okome PhD., Professor of African Literature & Film Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. Chris Chinemerem Onyema, Ph.D., is of the Department of English & Literary Studies, Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria, where he teaches Creative Writing, Discourse Analysis and Postcolonial Literature. He is the editor of Ecosahara: Africa Journal of Literature and the Environment.