Mazi Nwonwu reviewed the City Issue of Klorofyl. Below are his thoughts.
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Now to the review. :)
Klorofyl Magazine’s City Issue and the Modern Reader
Writing a review is not as easy as people think. It is not just
about reading, viewing or listening to a work of art and writing glowingly
about it, or dismissing it with a few strokes of the pen, or key strokes, as it
is these days. True, you approach some reviews with care, especially when the
artist is friend or family and a bad review may put paid to the economic
success of their artistic expression, however a good reviewer knows to tell the
truth at all times. No, this is not as impossible as it sounds. Since a review
is about the good and the bad of a product, any product, a good reviewer can
either focus on the good more than the bad or the other way round. This way,
the truth is told and the reviewer gets to keep his integrity.
To
tell the truth, it is easier writing good reviews than bad reviews and this is
primarily because it is easier reading, viewing or listening to good works of
art than not. I don’t see myself as a reviewer, not a professional anyway. I am
in simple words a consumer who has answered the call to provide feedback on
works of art I come across and feel strongly about.
Of
late, there have been calls for artists, especially writers, to embrace the
peculiarities of the internet, to create platforms that will pander to the
dictates of modern living, to take the short attention span of the multitasking
internet user into consideration, to evolve with the times. Many online
publications have tried this, but most seem to lack that special thing that
captures the essence of the advice. These failures may have more to do with not
understanding what is needed, than with anything else.
The meat of all these talk about reviews,
attention spans and the internet generation isKlorofyl.
Klorofyl is one of those answers you seek, those ones you know lie somewhere at
the back of your mind and yet can’t grasp, those ones you touch but can’t
recall for the life of you, until GBAM!
Klorofyl
is a digital magazine that hits you from the first page and gifts you a Eureka
moment. You think, this should be me, I should have thought of this, this is my
idea of an online magazine. It is funny, but the truth is that you never really
thought about it, but the concept is one of those simple ones that must have
taken serious thought and planning to achieve.
I
didn’t know about Klorofyl—beyond a mention here and there—before I got the
third edition via a writer friend who was featured in it. This third edition,
“the city issue”, appears to be a continuation of the magazine’s focus on
literary and graphic art and it does it with aplomb. If the fluidity of the
“Captains Log” that introduces you to the magazine does not convince you this
magazine takes its topic serious, the beautifully done cityscape of the content
page should. You know, just as you feel it: this is one of those outstanding
ones.
The theme is city and the writers,
photographers, poets and graphic artists that Klorofyl collected, delivered one
of the best odes to the concrete forest that I have seen in a long while. Jibola
Lawal begins the
offerings with an evocative picture of school girls probably on their way home
from school and an endearing flash fiction “The Bariga Philharmonic”, a story of the city of
Lagos at night, of the humming of the mosquitoes, vigilante gongs, snoring
spouses, and generator buzzing- all that makes for an annoying harmonic.
This
flash fiction effectively opens the book and the beauty it conveys is
replicated across the magazine. Story after story, picture after picture,
Klorofyl celebrates the city in a myriad of ways that are beautiful and
redolent in their familiarity.
This edition, as I said before, is dedicated
to the city and the treatment is classic. Tosin Otitoju, Dami Ajayi and Olatunde Asagba used
poetry to express the theme and gifted us beautiful poems that could only have
come from poets of their statue.
The arrangement of pictures was thoughtfully
done and complimented the essays and flash fictions. An example is how Segun
Alawode’s photo treatment of Lagos traffic on a rainy day opens
for Sylva
Nze Ifedigbo’s poignant creative non-fiction piece “Rains
in the City.”
The general idea, I feel, is a conscious
effort to engage with the reader through beautiful prose, poetry and visuals.
The attempt in my opinion is a resounding success. The stories are short, very
short, and there is no monotony to it. The photo essay on Makoko byLeke
Alabi-Isama was
exquisite, same for the essay on New York by Olubunmi
Ode,David T Msimanga’s “A
Day in Town” Olatukunbo Ayorinde’s “Rising”,
and so on and so forth.
Klorofyl’s
City issue may have
Nigerian leaning, but it is not overly so, not that that can be helped as most
of the contributors are Nigerian, but the magazine still manages to evoke a
global appeal as it touches South Africa, Zimbabwe and Asia.
There
was nothing not to like about this magazine, at least I am still searching for
something not to like.
The
truth is that liking or not liking an artistic work should be determined by
individual tastes. However, in this age of multi-tasking, that burden has been
passed on to the reviewer. The reviewer is supposed to make that choice for
others. You read, view or listen to an artist’s creation and you pass
judgments. It is this judgement that is difficult.
For
Klorofyl, I have a a judgement and it is thus: A high quality magazine tailored
for the multi-tasking reader whose attention span is limited.
For
the City Issue I say, Exquisite!
@mazinwonwu
