QUEERING THE HETERONORMATIVE SELF THROUGH MOTIFS OF ROMEOORIOGUN’S QUEER POETRY

The Nigerian poetic landscape is an ever-expanding terrain that continues to embrace new poetic traditions. The latest of such is the queer poetry. This is the poetry that focuses on gay experience and celebrates gay culture. Nigeria, being a heteronormative society, does not approve of gay lifestyle. This explains why few Nigerian poets have delved into this poetic sub genre. One vocal voice that has emerged is that of Romeo Oluwasegun Oriogun. The poetry of Oriogun paints a grim picture of the savagery and intolerance that gay people suffer as they express their sexual orientations. This essay explores the strategies employed by Oriogun in queering the heteronormative Nigerian society by dwelling on the two major motifs used in the poems. The essay relies on textual analytic method to read the various poems in the two chosen poetry collections namely: Burnt men and Winning Poems in Brunel International African Poetry collection. These collections are abbreviated henceforth as BM and WP respectively. The essay also combines sexuality and otherness theoretical postulations to undergird the argument. The findings from this essay are that motifs are central to Oriogun’s queer poems and that they are used to articulate the gay predicament. Also that these motifs convey variegated meanings associated with gay people. The essay concludes that in queering the heteronormative self, the poet employs motifs of fire and darkness to persuade the anti-gay group in Nigeria to tolerate gay people and redirect their minds to accept gay culture and the new norm in a fast-changing world.