Abstract
This paper uses the Reader-response theory to investigate the
futility of waiting as explored in “Waiting” by the two poets in their The Lure
of Ash and The Beauty I Have Seen, respectively. It is a coincidence for two
poets to pointedly dwell on the same title and subject matter. Isidore Diala
and Tanure Ojaide are both second-generation Nigerian poets who witnessed the
beginning of the fall of the Nigerian dream. The methodology used is qualitative as
excerpts of the key poems and relevant works are cited and analyzed. The work
is essentially literary as relevant aspects of literary criticism are deployed
to buttress aspects of the paper. The findings of the study are hinged on the
fact that the two poets of Ojaide and Diala coincidentally explore the metaphor
of “waiting” in their poems of the same title to denounce the political
inequalities in their country. The political class is presented as a set of
hegemonists who exploit and subjugate the people. The two poems are
revolutionary because of the revelation that waiting is futile, and is of the
colour of ash. Indeed, waiting is ash, and ash is waiting, a pun stylistically
deployed by Diala in his “Waiting.”
DOI: www.doi.org/10.36349/tjllc.2024.v03i01.047
author/Agada, Adah Abechi & Ugochukwu Ogechi Iwuji, PhD
journal/Tasambo JLLC | 15 February 2024 | Article 47
