KOLLECTIV 1

I met Christian Oyor at a writing workshop sometime in 2014. We were seated next to each other and after some exercises,  we got talking and shared the entries that got us to participate in the workshop. We talked about a lot- writing, blogs, the future and his dream of starting a literary magazine. Ideas shared, pictures taken and the promise not to remain strangers kept us friends. So, when he told me about KOLLECTIV- Love and Happiness,  I knew that dream was one step closer to reality.

KOLLECTIV is a publication of the Written Whisperz blog. This first edition is themed ‘Love and Happiness’. It’s a collection of beautifully crafted eight (8) short stories and seven (7) poems. Looking at the theme one would automatically think of love and romance, but the writers in this publication explored love and happiness in diverse ways which left me impressed. The world as it is, is in a tangle of beautiful mess. The only way to survive is to loom the thread of your path and find happiness doing so. One of the poems “Growing up” depicted this with the lines

Now we hop on boats leading to safety,

            for the world was far more than we thought,

            monsters in the places we once built statutes of angels.

Another poem that had lines which spoke to me was ‘Supress’

                You forget

                That you don't survive a war only by forgetting,

    But by forgiving yourself For your actions and inactions.

The poems in this collection explore different emotions that one can experience between the lines and verses. I wish I could have a favorite but they all spoke to me in ways I could personally relate with. Likewise so in the short stories which saw happiness in romance, death, betrayal, struggle for freedom, dedication and a whole lot more. One of my favorites “The first fight of one” is about a resilient ant who endures what we see as a tyrant Queen Khalifa. We see inside his head that he wants to be free from the mindless chores they are subjected to, free to be open to explore his mind. However, he lacks the courage to do so until beautiful Boroma happened. A lot of us are like this ant, trapped in our minds and waiting for that catalyst to ignite our fire to our freedom. In another, we see a father struggle to raise his daughter and her bizarre relationship with her pet chicken.

The graphics and design of this publication cannot go unnoticed. It was simple yet beautiful. The play of colours and imaging,  bringing to life the theme love and happiness. I must commend Christian the designer and talk to him about taking some classes from him. In all the written whispers team and contributors did a wonderful job and should maybe contact me for sugar cubes.

Writers create a world that is a reflection of real life experiences and their ability to enable the reader explore such with words and characters is only but admirable.

I enjoyed reading this collection and look forward to the next. You can download KOLLECTIV HERE. Show some love and share to your friends too.