Just like sex, I have often been faced with the dire difficulty to properly place Saraba using brief sentences. Saraba is just like that – like sex, it communes with your intellectuality, romances your subjective analysis and feeds on your reasoning strength for deep appreciativeness.
Saraba is more than a quarterly published magazine sharpening the voices of writers lodged in unmerited paltriness. Saraba is indefinable, for to smoothen down what it is, is to labour through the understanding of its varied themes. It is never here or there for long. It speaks of important matters in some months; dusts its shoes and goes on to sermonize on other issues requiring attention. Based on the foregoing, I will call Saraba a preacher.
Regrettably, for the politics forced down on religion, I will recant my previous adjective and imaginatively say Saraba is a decisive axe. That qualification should be temporal however. But to explain what it does with Sex in this issue; the designation should hold true for now. It mows down concerns regarding sex and almost exhausts all notions on it. Saraba's definitions are numerous and ever changing. For now, it is Sex, next time it could be Law. In recent past, it had been Music, Food, Technology, etc. It has always been Saraba's custom to bring to discourse affairs that are fast being suppressed by the busyness of our daily living.
In this our clime, sex is profane. For majority, to talk about sex is to be immoral and irresponsible. It is also the sobriquet that goes with anything called fornication, pregnancy and other debaucheries. This issue 11 turns Sex into a molten substance; allowed to make molds in the mind of the readers. The meaning of Sex isn't dictated, it is collaged into experiences of diverse minds. Your task is to adventurously unveil Sex in whatever manner Saraba Issue 11 has placed it. The unusual has been written about. Saraba Sex Issue calls us to mix senses with the various pictures sex has been painted into.
They Had Sex Issues
The Enemy Within:
I have read so much on sexual abuses in the past, but none had been able to bear on my reality. They all were, to me, reflections showing contrived reality. This isn't a normal submission, it carries a serious tone. It is the real story of a life once exploited and wounded. This write-up reveals the awful event of Adah's life (not her real name); that she might make a quick recovery from the sexual abuse she suffers when she is between the age of seven and eight. Her uncle, Andrew, explores her innocence and exploits the trust her parents have in him. For quick recovery, Timi Digha has given us access to this. However, I am still battling to understand this question; is this written for a fresh incident or as a reminder of a long past occurrence? An eight-year old wouldn't be this competent with the written words. Also, this is a call on all to protect every distant and close child to us; that s/he won't be put upon.
Size Matters (Ivor Hartmann):
Ivor has spun serious reality with humour. In the business down there, size speaks volume. We could laugh small penises off but only the sufferer of midget scrotum knows the burden he bears. Ask Mike, and he'll tell you size plays the game. For succour to his problem, Mike joins the association of MPA (Micro Penis annonymous). When he knows how frustrated he will continually be in his trial with a 7.3cm sized man, he becomes self-celibate. His enlargement breakthrough becomes another thing he will later loathe.
When You Go Down On Me (Mel Thompson):
"As your lips press harder at the head of my penis
and your tongue swirls around it as you suck
it seems as if more and more of my insides
are being pulled into you,…"
Just how far will you describe a sexual experience in letters? Wait! Read this also;
"And when I feel my hardening cock slip
into your throat, and your mouth wrap
around it clear to my abdomen
it feels as though all of the women who rejected me
have lined up to give me a blowjob with you"
These are not vulgar lines; they describe the plainness of what sex is.
Tales One Shouldn't Tell Often (Su'eddie Verishma Agema):
Not telling a story is a story in itself. Su'eddie's poetic lines are reasonably interwoven, connecting with each other at an interesting pace. What Su'eeddie has done is paradoxical to the title, he has written about the tale, and to write about it is to often tell it whenever it is read.
We Have Chosen to be Gay (Keguro Macharia):
I have always looked forward to two things in every Saraba's issue. The first is the Publishers' note which annexes the sterling craftsmanship of the co-publishers in measureable length of words. This note does showcase stinting slices of the great works to be expected; appealing to your taste before you come in contact with the works. The second is the startup piece, the number one submission; it constructs the standard for following pieces. As a startup piece, Keguro's piece bores one with spindly academic thesis. Saraba is not known for that. Keguro's non-fiction is too formally paperlike that it loses the spontaneous allure of a Saraba's beginning piece. While a lot of senses are made, this article should be reserved for academic journals and the appreciation of boring scholars. This article is a suicide mission for Saraba's readers; it mars the productive flexibility Saraba is known for.
Lust '3', Child Movement, Lust '2', Bor 'n' Gay, Consequence of Action and Saturated Lust (Kemi Akin-Nibosun):
These are photographs. Words will fail me to describe them. They are artistic pieces that move one's thinking to the deepest depth; where the thinking must be independent for one to get some understandings. With cinematic blur and 3D maneuverings, Kemi turns mundane pictures into a spectacle to be studied and wondered at. Her works took more attentiveness from me than the rest. I kept revisiting and studying them till my eyes went bleary. And I won't stop at that, when I visit this issue again, I will yet give them more attention and thoughts –they really are worth it. Kemi's pictures present Saraba issue 11 as a wonderful art room where viewing, reading and studying are all pleasurable.
Two Sides of a Coin (Ernest Alanki):
Dialogue is an interesting component of any prose work. However, in the hands of Ernest, it is a total wreck. Ernest should study the genre he has chosen to write in. He rams this piece into winding dialogues, when some of the dialogues should have been better expressed through the burst of his writer's Stream of Consciousness. Jeremy and Marcus (the piece's main characters) aren't only the two contrasting sides; Ernest's submission and prose writing are multiple angles of blunt edges. I was perpetually lost in this piece.
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Saraba is among the country's few online literary portals soaring to the heights our literature will be in the next few years. Prove me now herewith; download this Sex Issue and other past Issues on the site now.
