ISSUE 6:
GOD OF MAN
Let's imagine that God is to be traced with a golden crayon held in the shaky hands of an experienced infant. The infant asserts the moral cum
spiritual to tracing, and as Margaret Atwood once affirmed, God is a good listener. He doesn't interrupt. In our case,he didn't.
There was tenacity in our vision for this issue; if you wish, a tenaciousness. In attempting to define God, we came to the same conclusion as Gary Synder
who wrote in relation to a poem. "The poem is seen from all sides, everywhere at once." In this respect, God is seen from all sides, everywhere at once.
What we find is left for us to find by some sort of preordained order.
We cannot come to the end of our search. We will only try. It is a trial without error; an error without trial. Our concern has been to question the name of
God. We have asked this of his followers, his enemies, and the Neutral Asssociation on the Existence of God(NAEG). The question is not does God exist?
It is perhaps, how/why does he exist? Is he The Man or is Man the God? How manned/manly is God?
As such, while Dango Mkandawire tries to Man God or God Man, it is in the writing of Yazeed Kamaldien that we find the true ambition of a God-ed country. And
while Sophistes has chosen to find such God-ness in the generic divide between prose and poetry, Ram Govardhan has concieved a unity in religiousness, which is,
of course, man's futile reach to God. On and on. In this issue, we have compiled poetry and writings that are as
ambitious as non-ambitious; for we all found that we lack the temerity to end all definitions about God.
The truth, which has been hard to find, is found. Those who seek to God themselves must define God as themselves. No longer should we import a being responsible
for our minds. A man can choose to be his God; but no man should claim that God has chosen him to choose God. If he does, he would no doubts succeed. But mind
that he chose his own crayons--his standards, his desired end.
P.S: We could not define God. Our trial was an error.
E.I & D.A
Ile-Ife, Nigeria
June 2010
*Click the image of the magazine above or here to download the current issue (God, June 2010) of the magazine.
VOICES ON THE 4 WINDS:
Saraba's third poetry chapbook
Download (pdf)
Read the introduction by Jumoke Verissimo
POETRY CONVERSATION
As part of the Anniversary Celebration, EMMANUEL IDUMA conversed with BIYI OLUSOLAPE (Saraba's Poetry Editor) and DAMILOLA AJAYI on contemporary Nigerian poetry.
Download the conversation in two parts (MP3 files):
Part ONE (49 MB)
Part TWO (25 MB)
NEW SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
From April 2010, Saraba would no longer accept entries for the online magazine. Entries would be received only for the e-magazine and chapbooks. The site would be improved continually to represent and reflect the best of emerging writing from Nigeria, Africa and the world.
Interested contributors should read the following guidelines carefully. Saraba’s staff is a small number of committed and enthusiastic but busy professionals. As such, entries that do not conform to these guidelines would not be considered. Our goal is to give emerging writers a voice and confidence, to give them the opportunity of having their works published.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Intro
God of Man, a publishers’ note
Jesus or Lucifer, Non-Fiction
Scarlet Robe, Fiction
Height of Devotion, Travel Writing
The Fourth Deadly Sin, a very short Poem
A Sudanese Postcard
Khartoum's streets
The Balcony
spiritual Travels in Ethiopia's Old Town Harar, Travel Writing
This Entity, a Poem
The Two Hours, Fiction
A basic Internet Reading of Religion, Dispatch
Adagio, Fiction
Conversation; On african Roar & Story Time
Fishers, a Poem
My Japanese Garden, a Poem
On being Jacko, a Longer Poem
Hiroshima, a Poem
Spell, a Poem
To Muse Technology
End Poetry
On Writing God, a call for submission