Citation: Iwuji, U.O. & Ogbedeto, C.C. (2025). Imagery of Putridity and Horror in Collins Emeghara’s A Chicken with One Leg. Tasambo Journal of Language, Literature, and Culture, 4(2), 89-97. www.doi.org/10.36349/tjllc.2025.v04i02.011.
IMAGERY OF
PUTRIDITY AND HORROR IN COLLINS EMEGHARA’S A
CHICKEN WITH ONE LEG
Dr. Ugochukwu Ogechi Iwuji
Department of Humanities, Federal Polytechnic Nekede
Imo State, Nigeria,
ugoiwuji@gmail.com, uiwuji@fpno.edu.ng,
+2348068781712
and
Dr. Chimeziri C. Ogbedeto
Department of Humanities,
Federal Polytechnic Nekede
Imo State, Nigeria,
chimeziriogbedeto@gmail.com, cogbedeto@fpno.edu.ng,
+2348103480313
Abstract
This paper deploys the theory of formalism to investigate
the stylistic device of imagery in Nigerian poetry. It uses the poetry
anthology of Collins Emeghara, a contemporary Nigerian poet, who, like his
contemporaries, uses images of horror and putridity to depict the failure of
leadership in Africa. The tone of his poetry is both angry and revolutionary.
The poet’s persona’s society is impoverished, frustrated, and regressive.
Emeghara’s art draws attention to the hopelessness that has benighted most
African societies owing to poor leadership. The revolutionary aesthetics in
some of the poems suggest that someday the deprived of the land may rise
against the political leaders who bring nothing but poverty on them. The
methodology used in the study is qualitative; relevant texts and excerpts are
highlighted and interrogated in light of the preoccupation of the paper. Key
findings of the research are hinged on the fact that people so impoverished by
insensitive leadership may potentially revolt against their tormentors in a bid
to free themselves from imposed bondage.
Keywords: Formalism,
Imagery, Nigerian poetry, Putridity, Horror, Revolutionary
Introduction
Abrams and Harpham
(2012, p. 169) define imagery as a term “used to signify the objects and
qualities of sense of perception referred to in a poem or other work of
literature, whether by literal description, by allusion, or in the vehicles …
of its similes and metaphors.” At the core of the concept of imagery in
literary appreciation is the sense of perception and recreation of mental
pictures. It is a powerful literary technique that essentially triggers the
reader to recall experiences and memories. Writers who deploy the device of
imagery vividly describe or present experiences, actions, characters and places
through the appropriate use of language. Imagery improves a reader’s experience
of a text by deeply appealing to their senses. As a literary device, imagery
aims at a reader’s sense of taste, smell, touch, hearing or sight through lucid
descriptions. Deguzen (2025, p. 1) identifies seven types of imageries that
writers deploy, namely: visual imagery (uses qualities of how something looks
to create an image in a reader’s head), auditory imagery (appeals to a reader’s
sense of hearing), gustatory imagery (aims at a reader’s sense of taste),
olfactory imagery (appeals to a reader’s sense of smell), tactile imagery
(appeals to a reader’s sense of touch), kinetic imagery (describes the sensory
experience of motion) and organic imagery which appeals to primitive sensations
in humans such as hunger, fatigue, fear and even emotion.
Formalism and the Imagery of Putridity and Horror in Collins
Emeghara’s A Chicken with One Leg
Formalism is
perhaps a literary theory that bears more names than any other modern school of
literary criticism. It has been called New Criticism, aesthetic criticism,
textual criticism, modern criticism or ontological criticism. It comes across
as one of the outstanding contributions to literary criticism. Indeed, it was
the dominant school of thought in the better part of the 20th
century between British and American literary scholars. Formalism favours a
close reading of a text regarding the text as sufficient to bear its meaning,
isolated from any historical or social underpinnings. Dobie (2012, p. 33)
describes formalism succinctly:
Formalism’s
sustained popularity among readers comes primarily from the fact that it
provides them with a way to understand and enjoy a work for its own inherent
values as a piece of literary art. Emphasizing close reading of the work itself,
formalism puts the focus on the text as literature. It does not treat the text
as an expression of social, religious, or political ideas, neither does it
reduce the text to being a promotional effort for some cause or belief. As a
result, formalism makes those who apply its principles and follow its processes
better, more discerning readers.
From the foregoing,
it can be established that formalism is concerned primarily with the
arrangement of compositional elements that define a work of art rather than any
other factor, ranging from authorial to the historical. It sees a literary work
as autonomous and independent of external factors and contexts. It looks at how
literary devices and techniques in a work determine its total effect. It thus
provides an objective parameter for evaluating a literary work.
Formalism is
essentially an extension of the New Criticism, which, according to Bressler
(2003, p. 34), “provides the reader with a formula for arriving at the correct
interpretation of a text using only the text itself.” Such an approach offers
an objective methodology to literary analysis. It also helps in unravelling
hidden maps of meaning. It is a direct response to historical and biographical
research. Its early proponents, writes Bressler (2002, p. 40), were Rene Wellek,
W. K. Wimsatt, R. P. Blackmur, I. A Richards, Robert Penn Warren, and Cleanth
Brooks. However, it is acknowledged that two British scholars, T. S. Eliot and
I. A Richards laid its formal foundations of a literary theory. It is Eliot according
to Bressler (2003, p.41) who lends New Criticism some of its technical
vocabulary including “objective correlative” which is “a set of objects, a situation,
a chain of events or reactions that can effectively awaken in the reader the
emotional response the author desires without being a direct statement of that
emotion.” Whether one calls it New Criticism or formalism, it is a school of
thought that “examines a poem’s structure by scrutinizing its poetic elements,
rooting out and showing its inner tensions and demonstrating how the poem
supports its overall meaning in reconciling these tensions into a unified
whole” (Bressler, 2003, p. 47).
Dobie (2012, p.
41) identifies the main elements that call for attention in a formalist reading
of a text, namely: “form, diction and unity as well as the various literary
devices they subsume.” Form in literary analysis raises issues on the organisation,
structure, genre, and pattern in the work. In terms of diction, a formalist
studies, words closely, questioning their denotations and connotations,
allusions, ambiguities, etymology and symbol. Unity in formalist criticism
describes how all aspects of a literary work fit into a whole. Thus, one
element in relation to the others may contribute to the meaning of a work.
According to Dobie (2012, p. 45) “Unity is created, for example, when a single
image or figure of speech is extended throughout a work, or when several images
or figures form a pattern.” Impliedly, unity deals with coherence attained
through the consistent use of certain literary elements throughout a text. For
instance, a recurring imagery in a work of art can form a unifying pattern in a
text. These patterns create meaning in a text.
Collins Emeghara’s
A Chicken with One Leg (2023) is replete with lively images that are
instrumental to the unknotting of the meaning espoused by the individual poems
in the text. The anthology contains about thirty-two poems that brim with
lively images and symbols. Due to the constraints of time and space, however,
this paper focuses on some of the poems in the anthology that aptly define the artistic
predilection of the collection. Emeghara’s “A Chicken with on Leg” is the verse
that bears the title of the poetry anthology. The verse itself seems to define
all the verses in the anthology. The poem is essentially a political satire
that deploys the imagery of nakedness to define the African continent. The
African society, likened to “a chicken with one leg,” is mythical as a chicken
that stands on only one leg is clearly new and inexperienced, and makes little
or no progress compared with others standing on their two legs. It is, however,
ironic that this mythic chicken with one leg in the poem is an arrogant one.
The poem consequently opens with a rhetorical question intended to reprimand
the one-legged chicken:
What
pride has a naked man?
When
he dances his key jangles
Like a
belt…
When
he walks, all eyes
On him
Branding
in poverty, packaging
In
misery
Africa
wake up with the bird
You’re
running out of time…
A
chicken with one leg starts
Her
race on time o man… (p. 19)
There is an imagery
of nakedness that lays bare the metaphoric picture of the continent of Africa
and the cause of its seeming backwardness. The “Chicken” with one leg is Africa,
the domain of the black world. The imagery of nakedness in the poem is symbolic
of shamelessness. Africa dances naked in full glare of everyone as “all eyes on
him” as “his key jangles/like a belt.” The imagery of nakedness in the poem is
essentially a reflective signifier. The nakedness of Africa is likened to a man
whose private body part dangles in full view of the public. The metaphor of
jangling keys in line two is illuminated in line six, where the persona
identifies “poverty” and “misery” as ravaging the continent. Again, the imagery
of the two tropes of poverty and misery is a negative one. It is symbolic of
hopeless and ineffective leadership. The poem progresses with a warning that
Africa should arise and do something about its present squalid condition. Line
nine is an apostrophe, emphasizing the need to “wake up with the bird.” The
symbol of the bird in the poem is that of an announcer signalling the dawn of a
new day. A person who rises with the crow of a bird and prepares for the day
achieves a desired goal. This is why the persona of the poem warns that “A
chicken with one leg starts/her race on time o man.” There is an imagery of
time that is slipping out of the control of Africa. In the first place, the
continent lives in denial, dancing naked and “branding in poverty, packaging/in
misery.”
The successive
lines of the poem show a continent living in utter denial. The poet’s persona
wonders why a continent has failed to discover home-grown solutions to solve
its problems:
You’re
busy claiming British in Africa
French
man in Africa…
Motherland,
you’re running
Out of
time…
A
chicken with one leg starts her
Race
on time o man
To
meet up with the finish line
To
meet up with her co-chicken
You
spent your time claiming
American…
Speaking
“Hi men” at glance, you’ll wail
Oh
shit
But a
rat that dances in the rain
With
lizard will surely get cold (p. 19)
The opening lines
of the excerpt above present an imagery of a continent with an identity crisis.
It is a sarcasm that defines the rising spate of bad leadership in a continent
where leaders have failed to think inwards in developing Africa. The expression
of “claiming British in Africa” or “Frenchman in Africa” suggests a lack of
indigenous solutions in tackling the African problem. It is an indictment of
leadership that imports foreign ideas and adversaries that have contributed to
the underdevelopment of Africa.
Emeghara’s “A
Chicken with One Leg” is an indictment of leadership in Africa. A leadership
that allows its land to suffer in misery and penury is certainly an unpatriotic
one. Throughout the line of the poem, the persona is consistent in repeating
the fact that a chicken that stands on one leg will always be left behind by
others. Africa is the metaphoric chicken that stands on one leg because its
leadership is corrupt and unpatriotic.
A literary work
“that is poetically presented”, writes Iwuji (2023, p. ii), “is a serious
enterprise.” Collins Emeghara’s poetic journey continues in his “We live in
Hell”, where he recreates the grim condition of his African continent. If
Africans are like the chicken standing on one leg in the preceding poem, they
are now living “in hell.” In the seventy-four-line poem, the poet’s persona
evokes the imagery of “restless ants” to define his beleaguered African people:
Like
the ants
We’re
the restless
People
of the world
People
in
Endless
torment
Who
must sing
Praises
in same
If any
men
From
Africa
Should
Go to
hell
That’ll
mean
A
cheat, O Lord
For in
Africa
We
live in hell (p. 23).
The poem opens
with a simile where a striking similarity is drawn between the condition of
African people and the restlessness of the ant. Where Africans are likened to a
“chicken with one leg” in the preceding poem, they are now simply like the
restless ants. The subsequent lines illuminate the trope of restlessness. For
instance, they are people in “endless torment” who are condemned to endure pain.
There is an abundant use of catharsis in this verse, evident in the gory images
in the opening lines. People who are “restless” are listless, helpless and
unstable. There is then a more worrisome imagery of a people in “endless
torment”, who have no hope of a better future. There is also the worst imagery
of them all – the depiction of a people “living in hell,” a biblical allusion
of eternal damnation, torment and horror. The persona suddenly sounds dramatic
when he states how needless it is to be condemned to another hell since Africa
is sufficiently one. Amid the hellish experience, the people are also condemned
to “sing/praises in shame…” This implies that the people live in denial; they
suffer in agony while being made to hail the architects of their problems –
their leaders.
The imagery of
horror persists in the subsequent lines where the persona recounts the mortality
and morbidity situation in the land:
For
with our hands
We
bury our children
With
our eyes
We see
our own death
Mr.
Preacher, preach
About
hell no more
For in
Africa
We’re
already in hell (p. 23).
The foregoing is a
blistering satire on the political class of the continent, who mismanages the
people’s commonwealth while plunging them into the abyss of poverty. There is
no regard for the basic healthcare system, hence the people are unable to treat
their children, resulting in their death.
The people are so helpless
that they “bury their children and await death” themselves. The tropes of
“bury” and “death” symbolise a doomed fate. The people are apparently doomed
because there is no reprieve in sight. It is in this mood that the persona
entreats the preacher not to bother about preaching hell anymore to their
long-suffering people when literally “we’re already in hell”.
The imagery of
horror in the poem gathers momentum in the ensuing lines as the persona
progresses to render details of the hellish condition of his people:
We
live in
Hell o
man
Our
belly in the mirror
Of our
economy
Our
olives used to
Kola
the terrorists
In
Africa
We
live in hell
We
live in
Hell o
man
Hell o
man
How do
I manage
These
tears in my eyes (p. 24).
The imagery of
horror persists in the poem with the repetition of the line “We live in/hell o
man”. In the foregoing except, the persona identifies the duo of bad economy
and terrorism as catalysing the hellish condition of the African people. He
uses the symbol of “belly” in line three to illustrate the grimness of the
economy. The belly presented in the poem is flat and yearns for an elusive
food. If the belly is a reflection of the economy, then the living conditions
of the people is parlous. The use of the trope “belly” is also a synecdoche
that depicts the hungry humanity in the world of the poet. There is also the
horrific imagery of people massively killed by terrorists in Africa, for if
humans can be used as “kola” to terrorists, it means that life in the world of
the poet is brutish and predictably short. The leaders are too corrupt and
inept to protect the lives of the people of their country. It is in this
condition that the persona goes emotional as he rhetorically wonders how he
could “manage/ these tears in my eyes.”
There is also the
imagery of horror in the poem as the persona recounts how elections in Africa
have become harbingers of death for poor voters:
How do
I convince
Myself
it was all a lie?
Polling
unit, an alter where
We
must offer our blood
Go
back and
Tell
God o preacher…
That
in Africa
We’re
already in hell
Oh. We
live
In hell
o man (p. 24).
The foregoing
opens with a sense of surrealism. The persona prays that the abnormalities and
absurdities of his land could only remain an imagination or, at best, a lie. He
continues with his justification of his continent as a living hell while
indicting the leadership of the land for complicity in mismanaging the
electoral system that has claimed a lot of innocent lives. He views the “polling
unit” as a metaphor of death because blood is spilled before the emergence of a
winner. There is a sustained use of repetition, reinforcing the pains people
suffer in Africa. The continent is turned into a killing field – the people die
of hunger, deprivation, terrorism and election-related violence. Indicated in
the entire lines of the poem is the leadership at various levels of governance
in the continent.
The indictment of
the leadership of the continent is sustained in another poem, “Politician”. The
poem presents sordid images of putridity and horror, arising from negligence on
the part of leaders. The poem is a representation of what befalls a system when
its patrimony is looted by political leaders. In one of the lines of the poem,
for instance, the persona entreats the politician to return his loot to revamp
the healthcare system of the land as children are dying: “Return/your loot/that
child is dying/in our dead hospital” (p. 31). The tone of the poem is
supplicatory. The persona literally appeals to the “politician” to heed the
voice of reason and bring back his loot. He alludes “our dead hospital”, a
metaphor for a dysfunctional health system. It is in this type of system that a
child is left to battle with life. The African politician here is presented as
a corrupt and heartless fellow who loots the public treasury, thereby rendering
public infrastructure useless. The hospital is one of those public institutions
that have been “destroyed” by the corruption in the system. The persona continues
in his supplicatory tone to the politician:
Turn
not your
Face
away
O
politician
That
child has a
Hole
in the heart
Turn
not your
Heart
away…
O
politician
Cancer
has eaten up
That
woman o politician
Yet
you ate the money
For
the hospital equipment
But
what kind of
Heart
do you have? (p. 31)
The poem presents
a horrific imagery of a child who has a “hole in the heart” that needs to be
treated. The child patient is helpless in an ill-equipped hospital. The poem,
therefore, appeals to the thieving political leader to return the resources he
looted to fix the healthcare system. There is an extensive use of catharsis in
the poem as the persona again draws the attention of the politician to the “cancer”
eating up a woman in the hospital as the ill-equipped hospital is unable to
treat the dying woman. The poem suddenly turns dramatic when it questions the
imperviousness of the political leader: “What kind of /Heart do you have?, a
rhetorical question reinforcing the insensitivity of some leaders to the plight
of the citizenry. Yet in the course of the poem, the lines assume a supplicatory
tone once again as the persona pleads with the politician: “O politician…/. Do
not harden your heart” (p. 32).
The poem
“Politician” is a political satire on the evils of the corrupt governments in
Africa. It is a commentary on the fate of a nation where its leaders engage in
mindless looting of the commonwealth. The poet’s persona ingeniously chooses
the healthcare system to buttress the dangers of corruption, since it is the
sector at the core of human existence and well-being. The African nation in the
world of the poet is one deprived of basic health facilities as a result of
inept and corrupt leadership.
It is ironic that
the victim is the one appealing to the villain. Thus, a poet or writer is a minstrel with the
muse that must speak for his people when the occasion calls for it. Achebe
(2012, p. 57) is clear on the role of a writer: “My own assessment is that the
role of the writer is not a rigid position and depends to some extent on the
state of health of his or society. In other words, if a society is ill, the
writer has a responsibility to point it out. If the society is healthier, the
writer’s job is different.” Emeghara is vociferous in condemning the evil
leadership of his society. He condemns the purloining of the people’s resources
and the spate of deprivation it brings. Nigeria, like most African nations, has
been implicated in the web of bad leadership. Achebe (1977, p. 22)
unequivocally states that “the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a
failure of leadership.” This is a position whose relevance has remained unquestionable
even after three decades of its pronouncement. The politician indicted in Emeghara’s
“Politician” is an African leader who underdevelops his motherland but acquires
mansions abroad for his family members, where they enjoy standard facilities.
The poet’s persona
continues in his supplicatory tone till the end of the verse. The catharsis in
the poem takes a new dimension when the persona reminds the corrupt politician
of his mortality: “Can’t you see/ Your pretty corpse…/ o politician/look at
your /Golden casket/ o politician…/ Give ear to the /Voice of the gods” (p.
32). The appeal, expectedly, does not yield any result as the political leader
in the poem, like his peers, is hardened, ruthless and corrupt. He pays no heed
to the high mortality rate in his country occasioned by his mismanagement of
lean resources. He also pays no attention to the persuasive voice of the artist
who keeps vigil at the hearth of his art.
If the persona in
“Politician” is a weeping one with the tone of a supplicant, the one in “We’ll
be Your Nightmare” is bold and daring. He is a revolutionary who has no time to
appeal to his traducers. In the poem, the persona talks tough. He speaks of the
uncommon resolve of the hungry masses to be strong despite their predicament:
We the
poor children
Of the
world have
Worshipped
Naked
Before
The
temple of
Cosmos
at midnight
At the
foot of the goddess
Of the
universe…
And
she dipped us
One by
one right
In the
rivers of her tears
And
made us immortal…
To
stand above death even
In the
face of acute hunger (p. 33).
The foregoing is
not without its imagery of horror. There are “poor” children who have to go
spiritual to withstand the terror of hunger and maladministration. The poem
goes transcendental as there is the invocation of the “goddess/of the universe
to toughen up the traumatised children such that they would no longer feel
terrestrial pains of evil leadership. Having achieved this, the persona dares
the evil politicians to continue with their “evil” business of the
impoverishment of the land:
So you
evil politician
Go
ahead and starve us…
Take
away our food
And
keep it for your
Fourth
generation…
We’ll
not die
Rather
we’ll be
Your
nightmare…
Our
hungry belly
Will
hunt you…
The
tears of our
Starving
children
Will
make you restless…
The
agony of the
Children
you made orphan
Will
drive sleep out of your eyes (pp. 33 – 34)
Here, the persona
is no longer entreating the evil politician but is ready to fight him with the
arsenal at his disposal. The politician seems to have weaponised hunger in the
land, hence, he keeps “food” out of the reach of the masses. He loots the
resources that could be used for farming and food production and banks same for
his generations unborn. The result is the imagery of horror and putridity in
the land. The masses go with “hungry belly” and there are “tears on the faces
of “starving children” who die as they are unable to endure further pangs of
hunger. The poem is replete with catharsis. There is a palpable tone of loss in
the poem. People cry and die of starvation. There is “agony” in the land as
adults die, leaving orphans behind who can hardly take care of themselves.
Amidst this extremist condition, however, the persona talks tough, asserting the
possibility of shared pain as the corrupt politicians would suffer from sleep
loss as a result of the situation. This makes a subtle allusion what becomes of
Macbeth in the play of the same title, who after murdering King Duncan in his
sleep, is doomed to sleep no more. The
evil politician in Emeghara’s “We’ll be your Nightmare” may have “murdered
sleep” by looting the commonwealth of the masses, and allowing hunger to fester
in the land, resulting in pain and death.
The tone of anger
runs through the poem as the persona vows to be the nightmare of their
political traducers. Out of frustration, he curses them, insisting thus:
The
deep breath of the sick
Among
is will torment you…
Of a
truth I tell you
We’ll
be your nightmare…
You’ve
no
Hiding
place…
If you
like hide
In
your five star hotel…
But
when you look
From
your window…
Our
bones that are striking
Out of
our body will hurt you…
Our
eyes that are sticking
Out of
their socket will
Make
you cry…
The
echoes of our tears
Will
force you to lock
Your
window…
Surely
we’ll be
Your
nightmare (p. 34).
The imagery of
horror is pervasive in the foregoing lines. The persona vows to use the very
horrible condition into which they have put the masses to fight them. There is
the “deep breath of the sick” projected to “torment the politicians”. Also there
are “sticking bones” that pop out of the body due to a lack of flesh, which
will be the nightmare of the leaders. Then, there are “tears” with “echoes”
that are so deafening that the leaders will lock their palatial homes and
hotels.
In psychoanalytic
terms, the battle the persona wages against the corrupt leadership of his
country is that of the mind. The persona envisages a state when the
subconscious is thoroughly overwhelmed and scared stiff by the horrors in all sectors
of the country. There is a recurring symbol of hunger throughout the poem, a pointer
that the country is too impoverished to feed. There are “empty stomach”,
“wonder of hunger”, “horrible look” and “shapeless body.” Ironically, these are
the weapons of warfare for the poet’s persona.
In summary, Emeghara’s
“We’ll be your nightmare” is a political satire embellished with gruesome and
crude images of horror and putridity which are symptomatic of poor leadership.
The poem is a hybrid of the transcendental, the putrid and the ironical. First,
it goes mystic as a survivalist strategy for the suffering masses. Dehumanised
by poor living conditions, they seek divine intervention to withstand
impoverishment without giving in to death. This shows a people with a strong
will to survive against all odds. Having noted that the sole aim of their
political traducers is to annihilate them, they vow to withstand pain to fight
back. By so doing the people pass through extremist and horrible circumstances
that attenuate their humanity. The poem, is however, filled with ironies. One, it
is ironic that a leader will be so inhuman and indifferent to the people who
voted them to power. It is also ironic that the revolting masses would resort
to weaponising their condition to constitute a “nightmare” to a set of
evil-minded and ruthless people at the helm of affairs in their country.
Essentially, this is what happens to a people who have been unjustly punished
and frustrated by their leaders. If citizens could so toughen up themselves to
withstand their putrid condition, it means they could someday potentially bear
destructive arms against their tormentors. This is the scenario that has given
birth to various shades of terrorism, armed banditry and criminality in Africa
today.
Conclusion
Literature is an
artistic representation of man’s condition at any given time. At the core of
any literary enterprise is the fate of humanity. The literary genre of poetry
comes with a spectacular spontaneity and seriousness because it is laden with
catharsis, images, symbolism, cadence, pun and repetition, among others.
Collins Emeghara is a contemporary Nigerian poet whose art seems to be
“oven-hot” with its blistering attacks on the incompetent and corrupt
leadership that has impoverished a section of the African society and turned
the people into hopeless folks in their fatherland. Emeghara’s A Chicken with One Leg (2023) is laden
with lively images of putridity and horror, which aptly define the African
society in the mind of the poet. Constrained by time and space, the paper has
interrogated some of the poems in the anthology, which seemingly define the
preoccupation of other verses in the work. Taken together, Emeghara’s work
makes a strong statement on the aftermath of a society doomed by inept leadership
– such a society rapidly breeds deprived and frustrated humanity who may
potentially turn against the political class, or resort to negative resistance.
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