The four poems which Okigbo called Canzones and published in the journal Black Orpheus, No. 11, outline his earliest creative itinerary between 1957 and 1961. Considered as representative of the poet's juvenilia, two interesting observations can be made about Four Canzones. Firstly, these poems clearly indicate Okigbo's major physical displacements, all within the old Federation of Nigeria, since graduating from Ibadan University in 1956. Secondly, each of these physical displacements in time and space marks a new stage in Okigbo's poetic development and influence. (p. 24)

The central theme in Okigbo's Four Canzones is nostalgia. This is the result of successive impacts on a highly sensitive mind—hence the dual introspective and retrospective nature of these early poems. Okigbo's feeling of nostalgia is for the innocence of his childhood and for the peace and security of his birthplace. From both of these each successive growth or travel appears to him as a new...