Events

Event details

AN OPEN GROUP READING FOR IRAQ’S AL-MUTANABBI STREET
Mizna’s Writing Group will lead a group reading from the poetry anthology Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, commemorating the anniversary of an attack on this historic Iraqi literary hub. All are invited to join us, listen, and participate in the reading too. Copies of poems from the anthology will be available–perhaps you’ll join in?

Monday, March 3rd, 7:30 pm to 9pm
Eat My Words Bookstore
1228 2nd St NE Minneapolis MN 55413
FREE

BACKGROUND
On March 5, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationary shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community.

This book seeks to show where al-Mutanabbi Street starts in all of us: personally, in our communities, and in our nations. It seeks to show the commonality between this small street in Baghdad and our own cultural centers, and why this attack was an attack on us all. This anthology sees al-Mutanabbi Street as a place for the free exchange of ideas; a place that has long offered its sanctuary to the complete spectrum of Iraqi voices. This is where the roots of democracy (in the best sense of the word) took hold hundreds of years ago. This anthology looks toward al-Mutanabbi as an affirmation of all that we hope for in a more just society.
—Beau Beausoleil, editor, Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here