The term ‘stylistics’ is derived from the word ‘style’ which is one area stylistics looks at—the style of a writer. In German, it is known as stylistik, and in French, they call it stylistique. According to Spencer (1964), stylistics ‘may be regarded as an individual and creative utilisation of the resources of language’. Going by Spencer’s definition of stylistics, we can conclude the stylistic analysis of a text is formed from the fulcrum of language. Stylistics is the science through which a reader interacts with a text and bears meanings from it, using linguistic tools to achieve such.
For years, scholars in both language and literature have explored the concepts of stylistics and its theoretical efficacy in both literary and non-literary texts. Its emergence has paved the way for scholars to read through the writer’s style, choice of words, choice of structure, and deviation from the normal adherence to daily discourse. Stylistics enables the reader to interact with texts, surfing for meaning and intentions, whether prior to the knowledge of the writer or not.
Stylistics grows the intelligence of readers into becoming avid readers who delve into semantics, phonology, lexical items, and graphological studies of work. The world of stylistics is journeyed into through any of those aspects of language, but not limited to them. For the purpose of this paper, our concern is graphological analyses of Ndubuis’s Naija Is a Badly Behaved Poem.
At the graphology level of stylistics, we examine elements such as punctuation marks, spelling, spacing, use of pictures, colours, etc., and any visual element that makes the reader visualise the text and give it meaning. Our analyses will then be narrowed down to the use of punctuation marks and how these have helped shape the meanings of the poem.
About the Poet
Ndubuisi Martins (also called Ndubuisi Martins Aniemeka) has had his poems published, or they are forthcoming, in many online poetry magazines and journals,including African Writer Magazine, Ngiga Review, Lunaris Review, Wreaths for a Wayfarer, Sorosoke, and African American Review. He has published two collections of poems, One Call, Many Answers (2017) and Answers through the Bramble (2021), which were longlisted for the 2022 Pan African Writers Association-PAWA Poetry Prize, English Category. Interested in exploring Anglophone Poetry in what he attempts to theorise as The Signifying Chameleon, Ndubuisi Martins Aniemeka is currently a PhD student in the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, the Czech Republic.
The Poem: Naija is a badly behaved poem
Naija is a badly behaved poem
Homeland, green for kleptocrats, is red in my verse —
a poem written as an epic — becoming unfitting,
oversized sheets of noisy lullaby of countryside.
The metaphors squeak rather than rhyme. Our poetry
leaves many gnawing and a few looking through an
awkward mast of meaning.
Sound is a blast; quarrelsome vowels crunching
consonants and vexed stanzas spit venoms…
A bad poem is:
A country of tribes 1914,
Lugardian convenience,
That fiefdom where silence
befriends oppression, and
masses learn to live; to
adjust in circles of ever-
unfolding penury.
Naija is a poem,
A badly behaved poem.
Homeland, green for kleptocrats, is red in my verse —
a poem written as an epic — becoming unfitting,
oversized sheets of noisy lullaby of countryside.
The first line of the poem leaves one in a state of expedition into the lives of bad leaders. The reader is introduced to those who are dubiously amassing wealth and enjoying the resources of the Homeland. They are the ‘kleptocrats’. The writer foregrounds the concept of maladministration using parentheses. The parentheses used, picture the thoughts of the writer in such a way that leaves the readers resonated with a group of self-alienated prey in a society filled with honey only available to the kleptocrats. The use of parentheses not only isolates the “kleptocrats” but also creates a visual representation of societal divisions, portraying the powerful elite as detached from the struggles of the general population.
These parentheses separating ‘green for the kleptocrats’, other words, establish a world of class where the rich live an enviable, fruitful life as suggested by the word ‘green’. It is an amplificatory phrase, emphasising and amplifying the ego that runs in the body of kleptocrats, who hide in the parentheses of embezzlement, lavishness, and self-aggrandisement. The first line ends with a dash, suggesting a sense of hopelessness and despair for the masses, whose hopes are perpetually dashed. This dash reaches a closure after the word epic and leaves the reader with the option of seeing the longevity of perpetual hopelessness in the word epic as having its start from ‘a…’ and end at ‘…epic’. The implication of this is the visual representation of the dashed hopes created by the mishandling of funds and insecurity created by the political class in Nigeria.
Sound is a blast; quarrelsome vowels crunching
consonants and vexed stanzas spit venoms…
This stanza happens to be the writer’s vociferous voice, amplified by the use of a semicolon and ellipsis. These two punctuation marks convey a sense of urgency, anger, and danger, especially. The ellipsis at the end of the stanza is the danger, more dangerous than the venoms the ‘vexed stanzas’ spit. The ellipsis leaves us in suspense as to what should be expected from the venoms of the writer’s pen. Expectedly, what comes after this stanza is born from the pregnancy of concocted anger.
A bad poem is:
A country of tribes 1914,
Lugardian convenience,
That fiefdom where silence
befriends oppression, and
masses learn to live; to
adjust in circles of ever-
unfolding penury.
This stanza has an opening with a colon revving with so much expected information that looks thunderous. The thunderous message is born out of the ellipsis we had experienced in spit venoms…, therefore feeding our eyes and ears with a portmanteau of the past events and their unbreakable chains of happenings. This stanza is predominantly paratactic, as evident in the use of the asyndeton coordination. Before this, we see a colon, introducing the rest of the stanza and the wide gap between the first line and other lines of the poem. This wide gap is symbolic of the margins built by the political leaders to separate them from the masses. It also takes us into the mind of the writer, who we assume writes with so much disappointment, heavily laden on his heart, and pushes him to create pause for a while before going out with the endless list of what a bad poem is.
Naija is a poem,
A badly behaved poem.
The last stanza with two lines also has before it a wide gap, separating it from the previous stanza of endless ominous doings of the kleptocrats. This stanza is a reminder and reiteration of what Naija is. Here, the poet foregrounds the message with the use of repetition. The comma at the end of the first line punctures the mind of the reader, who could have expected a different phrase but was once again reminded of the subject matter of the poem, ending with a full stop. The full stop, which in another name is called period, leaves us in a state of confusion. The reader begins to ask if the maladministration, injustice, and all other social vices will end there and if the end to all these will be pioneered by who.
Conclusion
The graphological features in Ndubuisi’s Naija is a Badly Behaved Poem are integral to understanding its thematic concerns. Through the strategic use of punctuation, visual spacing, and metaphor, Ndubuisi crafts a poem that critiques Nigeria’s socio-political environment. The poem’s graphological elements deepen the reader’s engagement, allowing a nuanced interpretation of its social commentary. This analysis illustrates the power of stylistic devices in shaping both the form and the meaning of literary works, making Naija is a Badly Behaved Poem a rich subject for graphological study within the broader field of stylistics.