Orality, Indigenous Aesthetics, and the Poetics of Memory in Maria Ajima’s My Inene, My Grandma

Abstract

This study examines the deployment of orality and indigenous aesthetics in Maria Ajima’s My Inene, My Grandma, with a view to demonstrating how the poet reimages African oral traditions within contemporary written poetry. Drawing primarily on Oral Tradition Theory, with support from Postcolonial Theory, the study explores the ways repetition, chant structures, storytelling patterns, indigenous language, symbolism, and communal imagery function in the selected poems. Using qualitative textual analysis, the first five poems from the collection, including “My Inene, My Grandma”, “Arias for the Marias”, “My Three Little Chaps”, “This Native Love” and “The Trust of a Child” selected and purposely analysed. Findings of the study reveal that Ajima’s poetry is deeply-rooted in oral literary traditions, evident in its performative structures, praise forms, rhythmic patterning, and embedded folktale elements. The findings further reveal that indigenous linguistic expressions and culturally-grounded imagery serve as important aesthetic devices for preserving memory, articulating ancestry, and affirming cultural identity. The analysis also shows that the interaction of orality and indigenous aesthetics enables the poet to bridge the divide between oral tradition and written literary forms, thereby sustaining indigenous knowledge systems within contemporary poetic discourse. Through representations of grand-motherhood, kinship, communal values, and indigenous womanhood, the collection emerges as a poetic archive of cultural continuity. The study concludes that My Inene, My Grandma exemplifies how modern African poetry functions as a site where oral heritage is preserved, transformed, and aesthetically revitalised.