FROM PRISTINE STREAMS TO BROWN WATERS: RECLAIMING CAMEROON’S SILENCED RIVERSCAPES IN JOHN NGONG KUM NGONG’S POETRY

Author’s Name and Afiliation
Lontsie Tekem Aurelie
 lontsietekemaurelie@gmail.com
University of Yaoundé I, Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences,
Department of African Literature and Civilization, Cameroon

 Abstract
This article examines the representation of rivers, lakes, and oceans in the poetry of John Ngong Kum Ngong, focusing on the collections Blot on the Landscape (2015), The Tears of the Earth (2018), and Walls of Agony (2006). Adopting a postcolonial ecocritical lens, it traces the transformation of Cameroon’s water bodies from pristine life-sustaining resources in the precolonial era to sites of pollution, disease, and death in the contemporary period. The study highlights how Ngong employs nostalgia, anthropomorphism, sound devices, and vivid imagery to lament ecological rupture while advocating for reclamation of indigenous relational ethics with the environment. Poetry here serves as an educational tool for raising awareness about environmental degradation and cultural disconnection in Cameroon and Africa.

Keywords: riverscapes, postcolonial ecocriticism, ecological degradation, environmental reclamation, Cameroon Poetry, slow violence

Article Type: Open Access

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