Event Details

Date/Time: 

Mar 24 2010 7:15pm - 9:00pm

Price: 

Free to the public, donations welcome, books available for purchase

Where: 

Marymount Institute for Faith, Culture and the Arts
Loyola Marymount University
University Hall, 3rd Floor
Los AngelesCA 90045

The Third Area presents "Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, a Memorial Reading" as part of LA of the Land 2010: Transnational City:

The Third Area Poetry Series has organized this memorial reading for the third anniversary of the bombing of Al-Mutanabbi street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi street, the bookselling center and literary and intellectual heart of Baghdad, was ruptured when a car bomb exploded on March 5, 2007, killing more than 30 people and wounding more than 100 others. In response, Beau Beausoleil, a bookseller and poet from San Francisco, formed the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition of artists, writers, letterpress printers, and booksellers to raise awareness about this event and issues of international free speech. The Coalition's projects include a series of letterpress-printed broadsides, the sale of which benefits Doctors Without Borders, and a forthcoming anthology, Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here. Many of the poets featured at this event appear in the anthology alongside Iraqi authors responding to the catastrophe. While the street itself has been rebuilt, the Coalition aims to keep the importance of books and literary centers for the exchange of ideas at the forefront of our consciousness.

Levantine Cultural Center has previously cosponsored and presented two related programs, in November 2007 in the ALOUD series with the Los Angeles Central Public Library, and in March 2008 at the Newport Beach Library.

Featured poets and writers include Danielle Adair, Jordan Elgrably, Dima Hilal, Elline Lipkin, Dana Teen Lomax, Majid Naficy, Matthew Shenoda, Elizabeth Wilcox and Sholeh Wolpé.

In addition to their own work, these writers will share pieces by Iraqi writers from the anthology. The event has been organized and will be co-hosted by Amaranth Borsuk together with Sarah Maclay of The Third Area.

Light refreshments, co-sponsored by the Levantine Cultural Center, will be served, and broadsides from the Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project will be on view and available for sale with all proceeds benefiting Doctors Without Borders.

Mutanabbi Readings March 24, 2010