Reconfigurations of Trauma and Self-representation in Remi Raji’s Wanderer Cantos

Abstract

The relationship between poetry and trauma is multifaceted and significant in contemporary Nigerian literary scholarship. This implies that literature reflects different experiences that have to do with psychological trauma such as physical health conditions, political aggression, violence, economic disparities and cultural disruption. While most studies on the exploration of trauma in Nigerian poetry are focused on war, social and domestic violence, there are scant critical works on covid-induced trauma in poetry. The COVID-19 pandemic which has generated profound disruptions in human existence, producing both individual and collective trauma, demands literary documentation and interpretation. Remi Raji’s Wanderer Cantoes emerges as a poetic response to the pandemic, exploring the psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of suffering and resilience. This study, therefore, investigates how traumatic experiences like loss, isolation, and fear are mediated through poetic language, and are shaped by self- representation in Raji’s poetry collection, Wanderer Cantos. Poems were carefully selected from the second section of the poetry collection that dwells on the COVID-19 infection, and are subjected to qualitative literary analysis, showing how they explore the idea of self-portrait and trauma. this is complemented by secondary data are derived from journals, articles, essays and books. The study adopts Trauma Theory as its theoretical approach, to investigate manifestations of coronavirus-induced trauma in the poems. Trauma theory becomes more relevant to this study because trauma theory in literature try to show how traumatic experiences are represented, processed and transmitted through narrative. The analysis of the poems reveals that, through a personal account, the poet recreates the traumatic experience triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. It demonstrates that poetry functions as a therapeutic tool for reimagining survival.  Indices of covid trauma are identified in the poems through dissociative language, alienation, isolation, pain, suffering, hysteria, hallucination, traumatic disruption of time, psyche disruption, fragmented narrative and disorientation. The poet’s use of imagery, metaphor, paradox, personification to illustrate the painful experience of the COVID-19 infection, expose the traumatic experience of the poet and as well reflect an autobiographical account. The study concludes that Wanderer Cantoes reconfigures trauma by transforming unspeakable suffering into aesthetic testimony.

Keywords: Trauma studies, Self-Representation, COVID-19 infection, Nigeria poetry, Remi Raji Wanderer Cantos