{"id":12768,"date":"2015-02-01T02:25:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T06:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=12768"},"modified":"2015-02-01T02:25:10","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T06:25:10","slug":"eight-years-later-mutanabbi-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/eight-years-later-mutanabbi-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Years Later, Mutanabbi\u00a0Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MLYNXQUALEY<\/a><\/span><\/span> on<\/em> 0<\/a> )<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The battle over memories and representations of Iraq in US discourse rages, not just writ large, as in the discussions over<\/em>\u00a0American Sniper, but also in individual spaces, like Baghdad\u2019s central bookselling corridor:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"mutanabbi1_274x228\"<\/a>In the American news, the usual way of remembering\/forgetting the bombing that rocked Baghdad\u2019s Mutanabbi Street in 2007 seems to be ever-present\u00a0feature\u00a0stories about the street\u2019s\u00a0\u201cresurrection\u201d:\u00a0January 2009<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0USA Today,\u00a0<\/em>April 2011<\/a>\u00a0by Reuters, March 2012<\/a>\u00a0from AFP, November 2014<\/a>from McClatchy,\u00a0January 2015<\/a> from\u00a0The Week,<\/em>\u00a0as well as others.\u00a0<\/em>The up-from-the-ashes metaphor usually hides more than it reveals: What has happened here? What connects (and disconnects) the US and Iraq?<\/p>\n

A dedicated group of academics and artists, for the eighth year running, insist on holding on up a light and visiting Mutanabbi Street in a more intimate and complicated way.<\/p>\n

Across the US, the UK, and beyond, \u201cAl-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here<\/a>\u201d founder Beau Beausoleil \u2014 who also co-edited a book <\/a>and curated an art installation<\/a> of the same title \u2014 joins\u00a0other Mutanabbi project stalwarts\u00a0in continuing\u00a0to forge connections\u00a0through art and poetry.\u00a0This year\u2019s readings are set for on or about March 5, eight years after the\u00a0bombing that devastated the\u00a0bookselling street, a loss eloquently described by Anthony Shadid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why al-Mutanabbi Street? Why not imagine our way to Abu Ghraib, the invasion, the Gulf War, the blockade, earlier imperial maneuverings?<\/p>\n

Beausoleil earlier\u00a0said via\u00a0email:<\/p>\n

The emotional enormity of the invasion and occupation of Iraq is enough to completely freeze one up. Where does one start? How do you organize a list of horrible events so that they are addressed but not compared and contrasted as to their importance?<\/p>\n

I feel one must simply pick something. You must find a moment that you can step into, one that resonates with who you are in your everyday life. That moment for me was the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street because, as a bookseller and poet, I knew that al-Mutanabbi Street would be where my used bookshop would be, and that as a poet this would be my cultural community that was attacked.<\/p>\n

Looking closely at any such small but devastating moment \u2014 in the context of a brutal occupation that lasted more than eight years \u2014 reveals the layers of the war as it was laid down year after year. The entire war is in this one day, in both its complexity and clarity. Positioning the project as \u2018anti-war\u2019 would, I feel, make it too easy to dismiss and brush aside.<\/p>\n

Imperialism is wide and sweeping but responses need to be focused and direct.<\/p>\n

Eight\u00a0years on, the lives of Iraqis and North Americans remain deeply intertwined, and eight years on, we have just as much trouble\u00a0placing our ear to the wall and hearing Iraqi voices, particularly over the clamor of our own soldier literature.<\/p>\n

The Mutanabbi Street readings, as Beausoleil emphasizes, are not moments of \u201chealing,\u201d nor a time to hear US veterans\u2019 voices, but a time to listen through to Iraqi voices and real grappling with Iraqi lives. The readings this year are dedicated to the women of Iraq.<\/p>\n

This year, Beausoleil says that he likes \u201cthe addition of the small intimate readings and the fact that some people are pausing in their routine\/travels to mark the day by reading something for al-Mutanabbi Street to whomever they are with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus far, there are events scheduled for the Levantine Cultural Center in Los Angeles,\u00a0Washington, D.C. ,\u00a0San Francisco,\u00a0the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan,\u00a0the Book Arts Association of Newfoundland and Labrador & Eastern Gallery in St. John\u2019s,\u00a0The Great Overland Book Company,\u00a0The Institute Library\u00a0inNew Haven, Connecticut, the\u00a0University of Queensland, Australia,\u00a0Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union, Antwerp, the\u00a0University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham, Exeter, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

For anyone else who would like to do\u00a0a\u00a0reading, Beausoleil\u00a0asks that they follow some general guidelines that he\u00a0would send them.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MLYNXQUALEY on FEBRUARY 1, 2015 \u2022 ( 0 ) The battle over memories and representations of Iraq in US discourse rages, not just writ large, as in the discussions over\u00a0American Sniper, but also...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,57,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-iraq","category-poetry-readings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12768"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12770,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12768\/revisions\/12770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}