Environmental Aesthetics in Olajire Olanlokun’s Children’s Poetry for Pleasure

Abstract

The relevance of literature generally and children’s literature, specifically, to the growth and development of a nation cannot be over-emphasised, and this is evident in the portrayal of relevant contemporary issues by writers of this genre. One of these contemporary issues include matters relating to the environment which have taken primacy in the 21st century as one of the most prominently discussed issues across the globe, and which has resulted in the postulation of notions of Ecocriticism by various ideologues. Hence, the purpose of this paper, which was descriptive, was to examine the environmental aesthetics in selected poems from Olajire Olanlokun’s Children’s Poetry for Pleasure, using African Literary Environmentalism, as guide for analysis. Findings derived from the analyses of the selected poems showed that African Literary Environmentalism is an appropriate tool for the analysis of the selected text, as Olanlokun employs poetic devices like personification and metaphor in identifying the role that the environment plays in the formative stage of children within the African setting. The paper therefore concludes that Olanlokun through his simplification of the themes, language and general style, has succeeded in portraying the beauty of the environment and the need to preserve it using children’s poetry.