...because Sumayyah Said So
Free / digest-size/ 30pgs
PDF download available here
Like many zine enthusiasts, I treasure the tactile familiarity of printed words on hand-folded paper. Still, I was mildly intrigued when I noticed an offer to download a free pdf version of Sumayyah Talibah's zine ...because Sumayyah Said So on my last visit to the We Make Zines website. Talibah is an admirer of the sci-fi and fantasy author Octavia Butler, and she mentions her yen to follow in the author's footsteps on the title page. Now, having just reread Butler's Wildseed less than two weeks ago, I couldn’t help but see a hint of serendipity in that mentioning, and took it as a good omen of what was to come. ...because Sumayyah Said So plays host to four of Talibah's thoughtful and well-worded poems: "Why I Write," "Annoyance," "Because Poems," and "The End of Everything." The zine also features the 8-page fantasy work, "Devour." As good as her poems are–and they are very good inded–I found "Devour," a thinly veiled homage to Butler, to be such an excellent work that after reading the final paragraph, my head shook from right to left in amazement. And after fully absorbing the poeticism of the final sentence, my first thought was that I had probably never read a better piece of fantasy writing in any zine. If I had any criticism of the work, it would be in the form of a lament that ...because Sumayyah Said So wasn't actually 48 pages, which could have allowed for more of Talibah's fantasy writing–because one piece was simply not enough. Encore.
1 comment:
I am pleased that you not only enjoyed my work, you chose to write about it and share it with the world. Thank you so much for reading!
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