Contextualizing Terror in Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's "Terror Haiku Poems"

Abstract

Psychological and postcolonial theories, the concepts of terror, horror, terrorism, and the principles of security studies serve as guide to how Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo contextualizes terror and assesses insecurity in Nigeria. Her Haiku poems which make up a subsection of her Mixed Legacies entitled "Terror Legacy: Terror Haiku Poems," form the primary text of this literary research. This paper exposes the link that subsists between post-independence disillusionment, poverty, greed, religious fanaticism, and illiteracy, on the one side and terror, terrorism, and insecurity on the other side. The reading of Adimora-Ezeigbo's Haiku poems on this subject-matter reveals the dynamics of terror in Nigeria and its effects on the psyche of Nigerian citizens. The research reveals that the goal of the poet in the depiction of terror in her poetry is not only to historicize and poeticize the events of terror, but to create an atmosphere for psychological healing. Through the different Haiku poems, she contextualizes terror and reflects its boundaries. The research concludes that Adimora­ Ezeigbo's poetry and "Terror Legacy: Terror Haiku Poems" in particular, psychoanalyzes security situation in post-colonial Nigeria, for the therapeutic purpose of helping Nigerians suffering in silence to locate or create a vent to let out the steam of fear locked up inside them. Her choice of the haiku form as a vehicle for the contextualizing of terror and poetic catharsis is borne out of the aptness and concreteness of this form of Japanese poetry.