Disputed Origins and Hybrid Blooms: Individuality, Confrontation, and Language Repossession in the Selected Postcolonial Poetry

Postcolonial poetry transforms the legacies of empire into potent sites of resistance and identity formation. This paper argues that the poetry of Walcott, Bennett, Soyinka, Ramanujan, and Faiz employs distinct poetic strategies to expose colonial violence, psychological fragmentation, and cultural erasure while actively reclaiming agency through linguistic innovation and hybrid expression. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s hybridity, Frantz Fanon’s decolonization theory, and Gayatri Spivak’s subaltern framework, the analysis reveals how these poets navigate postcolonial ambivalence. Walcott’s poems embody Fanonian alienation ("divided to the vein"), while Bennett’s poetry weaponizes Jamaican Creole to subvert linguistic hegemony, enacting Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s decolonization of the mind. Soyinka’s "Night" mirrors Fanon’s "pitfalls of national consciousness" through metaphors of predatory disillusionment. Ramanujan’s poem reclaims indigenous folklore to center female agency, countering Orientalist discourse. Faiz’s poetry repurposes the Urdu ghazal to prioritize collective struggle over personal love, voicing Spivak’s subaltern amid state oppression.