INTRODUCTORY NOTE
‘Departure’ is an all-encompassing experience— leaving, going away, deviation, death, exit, quitting, unconventional, retreat, withdrawal, and all. And in this issue of Libretto Magazine, these brilliant writers and poets skilfully do justice to the theme: Departure.
The collection opens with a classic ‘literary departure’, a kind of departure from the conventional story development where everything is expected to be resolved or worked out after a story’s climax— denouement. And like great poets like E.E Cummings, Stephane Mallarme and Wole Soyinka who had one time or the other deviated, deliberately, from conventional modes or styles of writing in order to heighten their creativity, Fatimah Abdullah’s ‘Deviation from the Norm’ takes you to the climax, a mountain top and leaves you there to decide the best way and means of your departure!
And in this, Faith Miller, in her homophonic pun and onomatopoeia attempts in ‘The Pasture’ follows suit with fine prose. Same with Debasish Banerjee’s ‘A Martyr’s Diary’ and Johnson Ezekiel Sunday’s ‘Just a Kiss’ and David Nwafor’s ‘The Mirror Without Reflection’ and Jim Ross’ ‘Without Glove.’
In Nwabuisi Kenneth’s stylish departure ‘For Today and Those Days You Were Not Here’ you will have to answer the question:
“When you prick a rainbow with a niddle,
What colour does it bleed?”
Thereafter you will find yourself “In Conversation with the Dead”, penned with superb craftsmanship by Peculiar C. Ene.
The poets do even more, Patricia Carragon’s ‘I’ve Got You Under my Skin’ (inspired by Frank Sinatra) which employs a poetic imagery, is a radical departure. Melissa D. Burrage sings about ‘departure’ in every sense of the word. From her beautiful ‘My Bellini Dream’ through her sonorous ‘Bass River in Mourning’ to her poetic song ‘A Bass River in Departure’.
Welcome to ‘Departure’!
Ben Ige
Playwright, poet and literary critic
CONTRIBUTORS
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