We Live, only if the Environment Lives; An Enquiry into Niyi Osundare’s Eco-poems

Abstract

This paper sets out to investigate the symbiosis between humankind and the environment that they inhabit. The relationship between the denizens of the earthly environment and the lifelong interdependence of both flora and fauna are examined in this work. Two of the volumes of poetry by Niyi Osundare are used in the treatment of the themes of this study. These are: Waiting Laughters (1990) and The Eye of the Earth (1996). The literary theoretical approach known as ecocriticism is deployed in the study of the poems selected from both collections. The study is further underpinned by the Reader Response critical theory. The paper concludes that a mutually rewarding co-existence is the only prescription for an augury of pleasure and sustainability between the environment, on the one hand and humankind, on the other.