African Study Monographs, 41(2): 35–50, December 2021 https://doi.org/10.34548/asm.41.2.35 (Published online: December 25, 2021) 35 THE DEVELOPMENTAL TRAJECTORY OF WRITTEN IGBO POETRY (1975–2015): THE INFLUENCE OF THE MISSIONARIES AND THE BIRTH OF THE IGBO ORIENTED POETRY Chukwuebuka Uchenna ORAEGBUNAM Department of Linguistics and African Languages, University of Ibadan ABSTRACT Written Igbo poetry (henceforth, W.I.P.) (1) is generally known to have begun with the publication of Akpa Uche (An Anthology) in 1975. Recent evidence reveals that W.I.P. started in 1934, with the publication Akwukwo Ukwe n’Asusu Ibo by the Church Mission Society (C.M.S.). Igbo scholars have chronicled the development of Igbo prose and drama, but the historical trajectory of W.I.P. is yet to be explored in literature. To this end, this paper presents an account of the developmental journey of Igbo poetry from its oral form to its present written state, taking into consideration all the factors that contributed to its growth and metamorphosis. The study claims that the missionaries laid the foundation for the birth of W.I.P. in 1975. The study also finds that, since the final debut of W.I.P. in 1975 through 2015, a period that commemorates four decades of the existence of W.I.P in Nigeria, W.I.P. has grown tremendously in terms of quantity. Key Words: the Igbo; Development of written Igbo poetry; Igbo poetic origins; the Missionaries. INTRODUCTION The publication of the first Igbo prose, Omenuko, by Pita Nwana and D.N. Achara’s Ala Bingo, both in 1933 marked the beginning of written Igbo literature. Earlier studies on written Igbo literature have paid more attention to the prose and drama genres with less attention paid to the poetic genre. Two prominent Igbo scholars, Emenyonu and Onyekaonwu, have given the Igbo novel an exhaustive historical study, leaving the study of W.I.P. at the periphery of Igbo scholarship. For instance, Emenyonu (1978) chronicles the development of the Igbo novel in his book, The Rise of Igbo Novel, and Onyekaonwu (1986), in his doctoral thesis, surveys all written Igbo fictions within a period of 15 years (1933–1983). This means that Igbo novels have received far greater historical attention than Igbo drama and poetry. In 2010, Nnabuihe presented a historical account of written Igbo drama in his doctoral thesis (Nnabuihe, 2010), but the history of W.I.P. has still not been studied. Ugonna sought to understand how Igbo poetry has grown when he asked, “Is there Igbo poetry? If there is Igbo poetry, to what extent has it grown? What characteristically is Igbo poetry?” (Ugonna, 1982: 20). In his attempt to provide some empirical answers to Ugonna’s questions, Ikwubuzo (2007) assessed the level of growth of W.I.P. in three decades (1975– 1995), in terms of its study in higher institutions of learning in Nigeria. There is now a legion of Igbo and non-Igbo scholars who cannot track the historical development of W.I.P. due to the unavailability of historical documents. The aim of this study, therefore, is to fill this knowledge gap by providing a detailed account of the developmental trends of W.I.P., with a view to achieving parity in Igbo literary studies. The study argues that before the debut of the first anthology of written Igbo verse Akpa Uche, which was edited by Romanus M. Ekechukwu in 1975, the Igbo had written Christian religious poems which were published in 1934; a year after the debut of the first Igbo novel. Omenuko (Nwana, 1933) and Ala Bingo