MEMORIALISING AND ARTICULATING BOKO HARAM-INDUCED TRAUMA IN SELECTED POEMS FROM THE MARKAS

Abstract

Trauma engendered by Boko Haram activities, as depicted in Nigerian poetry, encapsulates deep-seated trauma at individual and collective levels. Existing studies on the representation of Boko Haram atrocities in Nigerian poetry focused on survivors’ silence, belatedness, and traumatic amnesia, while overlooking victims’ capacity to articulate and memorialise their experiences. This study, therefore, examined the memorability and speakability of Boko Haram- induced trauma by examining the thematic representations of trauma in selected poemsbout Boko Haram. Joshua Pederson’s model of Trauma Theory, complemented by Stef Craps’ Postcolonial Trauma Theory served as the framework. Seven poems from The Markas: An Anthology of Literary Works on Boko Haram were purposively selected due to their thematic relevance and subjected to literary analysis. Eight thematic categories emerged from the representation of traumatic experiences: sexual violence, hypervigilance, survivor-guilt, suicidal ideation, altered identity, ecological loss, routine vicarious traumatisation and tears as emotional release. Sexual violence is remembered in the painful nexus between traumascapes — spaces in which traumatic events have occurred and trauamatised individuals continue to experience their effect. Hypervigilance is voiced as a symptom of traumatic recollection, while ecological loss is memorialised as a corollary of Boko Haram insurgency. Survivor-guilt, routine vicarious traumatisation, suicidal ideation, altered identity and tears as emotional release evoke traumatic memory. The study concluded that the selected poems about Boko Haram thematically embody the speakability and memorability of trauma.