The interface between Yoruba history and cultural productions has created a paradigm shift from literature as pure fiction (as in the works of Amos Tutuola/D.0 Fagunwa), to literature as a historical continuum. This agrees with Yoruba worldview and explains minimize fictional mediation in contemporary Yoruba literary works. They reveal transparent texts in transparent contexts. As history is inserted overtly into literary works, oral literature has also witnessed a paradigm shift that makes it less esoteric and metaphysical but more realistic. This paper will focus on some aspects of Yoruba oral genres that have not been much explored as historical sources. Unlike the folktale, proverb, ijala and ewi among others, palace oral poetry remains largely unexplored. My on-going research reveals that a lot of information on the historical and contemporary power dynamics of Yoruba female regents can be elicited from this sub-genre. Yoruba proverbs identify a dialectical tension between the past and the present, the traditional and the modem, the indigenous and the external, like in many post-colonial societies. Oral literature faces the threat of marginalisation or effacement if it remains exclusively a relic of the past. This calls for cultural negotiations, adaptation and alterity, especially by women regents, to prevent cultural closure and encourage women's power dynamics. This paper will adopt a proactive theoretical framework that brings out an intersection of cultural and gender resilience in the content of palace poetry focusing on Yoruba women regents, past and present.