Adeniranye, Adeyinka Charles
Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo. Email: charlesadeniranye@gmail.com

Abstract

The interaction of man with nature has left the environment battered and, in most cases, without repair in any near future. However, occurrences around us always serve as warning signals of the danger of a lack of ecological concerns; prominently of recent is the COVID pandemic. Against this backdrop, this study looks at the traumatic experiences of the poetic persona in both poems as a way of understanding the danger of ecological destruction and it is that metaphoric representation. The poems have been purposively selected, because of their relevance to the focus of the study, for literary analysis. The study employs the trauma theory for the analysis and discovers that the poetic persona suffers regret and trauma caused by the disconnectedness between their experiences of what nature offered in the past and the realities of what man has turned nature to. The resources of nature present in the villages present life while those of the city presents death just as COVID does. Man's futility at tethering nature is also revealed. This study draws a similarity between the mortal power of COVID and what awaits man if ecological degradation is not checked. The study concludes that the poems capture the realities of the "death drive" that is pushing man to destroy the environment as a precursor to his own destruction so man should protect the environment in all ramifications.