Abstract

The crux of feminist ideological alignments is the struggle for the woman’s liberation from patriarchal subjectivities. This study investigates the utilization of poetry by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley to challenge patriarchal dominance and expose the gimmicks of female devaluation by hegemonic imperialism. Wesley’s poems: “Inequality in Hell” and “My Auntie’s Woman-Lappa Husband” which sufficiently explore feminist consciousness from Wesley’s poetry collection, Where the Road Turns, were purposively selected and subjected to close reading and qualitative analysis. The poems were critically analyzed through the lens of postcolonial feminist literary criticism which examines issues of phallocentric structures, especially in formerly colonized states. The selected poems show the itchy pains of masculinity and devaluation of womanhood in canonical text. Wesley’s poetry invites her readers to a philosophical introspection of patriarchal order with respect to the unbalanced treatment of women in postcolonial Liberia. The poet, through her art, exposes the unfair imaging of women globally.