Poetics of Collective Resistance as Social Therapy: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo and Idris Amali

This paper explores how poetry functions as a form of social therapy by examining the poetics of collective resistance in the works of Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo and Idris Amali. Drawing on psychoanalytic criticism and critical theory, the study positions both poets as cultural diagnosticians who present Nigerian society as an ailing and disordered space. Their poetry becomes an instrument of psycho-social intervention, prescribing collective resistance as a therapeutic response to political, cultural, and moral crises. The analysis focuses on three poems each from Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Waiting for Dawn and Amali’s Efeega: War of Ants. Through close textual reading, the paper identifies symbolic and imagistic strategies that mobilize readers toward action, emphasizing that resistance must be inclusive, intergenerational, and even ecologically mindful. Both poets expand the notion of community to include not only the living but also ancestors, animals, and the natural world, suggesting that the health of society depends on holistic participation in the struggle against oppression. By framing resistance as both diagnosis and cure, Adimora-Ezeigbo and Amali transform their poetry into a site of moral renewal and social mobilization. This study concludes that their works contribute to a broader understanding of literature as a therapeutic tool capable of inspiring communal consciousness and offering a model for addressing similar crises in other postcolonial contexts.