What is more, by attempting a categorization of African poets into generations, there is a
simultaneous acknowledgement of distinct literary traditions. Nevertheless, the
formulation of such categorization becomes problematic when it is imperative to admit
that no tradition or generation stands as an island without drawing inspiration from an
earlier tradition, no matter the magnitude of contrast a juxtaposition of two separate
traditions pretends to show. That is, even when written African poetry pretends to
contrast sharply with oral poetry, the rootedness of African poetry of scribal tradition in
the predominantly oral tradition cannot be denied. Similarly, much as it is possible to
argue about the existence of different poetic schools, traditions and periods in modern
African poetry, the task admittedly remains “messy” as one struggles with the
intersections and overlapping tendencies by which the first generation is, for instance, at
poles apart from the second, and so forth. The observation is all the more true since in
whichever historical context, “so it is that the individual text [and by implication every
individual poet] carries with it a whole tradition, reconstructed and modified with each
new addition” (Fredric Jameson 2005:2). To cite one specific instance of Okigbo’s
influence on poets of the second generation, even the most vociferous of his critics,
Chinweizu, has been confirmed to have consciously or unconsciously internalized some
stylistic and structural inflections that are typical of Okigbo’s creativity (Wale Ajayi
2005:98). Not surprisingly, then, Afam Akeh (2007:3) reels out a long and diverse list of
younger African poets, who in spite of their engagement with issues not exactly in
consonance with the realities that informed Okigbo’s poetic intervention, let alone the
complexity of his art, continue to betray their indebtedness to this poet of the first
generation. In spite of the foregoing, part of the mandate of this introductory chapter is to
come to terms with and acknowledge a second generation that can be said to have
evolved in the wake of what has been termed “the post-Soyinka’s generation” (Femi
Abodunrin et al 2006:1022).
Identifying a Second Generation, Anyway
The background to the emergence of the second generation of African poets transcends
the simplistic banality of age difference as more fundamental issues can be adduced for