ABSTRACT
Poetic imagination and futuristic themes in African literature are examined in light of the responses of African poets, as well as those born in the diaspora, to inept practices of the ruling class, wars, migrations, colonial times, and neocolonial times. Mazisi Kunene and Kofi Awoonor, two of Africa's pioneer poets, provide insight into autonomous writing spaces reserved for Africans influenced by traditional concepts, including mythology and cosmology, opposed to colonization. This chapter also examines the predilections toward nostalgic, aesthetic, and the future in African poetry by Jack Mapanje, Lupenga Mphande, Tanure Ojaide, Warsan Shire, Dike Okoro, Vonani Bila, Chielozona Eze, and Patricia Jabbeh Wesley.
