Style is an important aspect of literary analysis of text. The manipulation of words by a writer creates a distinct style through which he/she reaches out to the audience. A literary stylistic analysis of Niyi Osundare’s “Blues for the New Senate King” is carried out in order to demonstrate to the readers that a poet can deploy language to achieve satirical effect. To achieve this, lexico-syntactic patterns, graphological devices, phonological and morphological choices of the poet are stylistically analysed, using the approach that describes style as the linguistic choice of a writer. The paper found out that each of the linguistic choices has identifiable function that is performed in the poem. It is concluded that these linguistic elements contribute meaningfully to the overall message of the poem which satirizes the ignominious manner in which the Nigerian Senate President assumed the leadership of the upper chamber of legislature in Nigeria for the 8th Assembly.
Keywords: Linguistic, Literacy, Nigeria, Niyi Osundare, Poet, Style
