Muses walk
Subtitle: yes but is it poetry
By: Christodoulos Makris
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Christodoulos Makris]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Dublin, Ireland]
Language: eng
Copyright date: 2012
Subjects: Violence; Pictorial works; Booksellers and bookselling; Bombings; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Protest movements; Books and reading in art; Intellectual life; Social conditions; Censorship; Terrorism in art; In art; War and civilization; Vehicle bombs; Visual literature; Specimens; Private presses; Irish Chapbooks; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.

Christodoulos Makris is a poet. He was born in Nicosia, studied in Manchester, and has lived in London and Dublin. He is currently based in north county Dublin and works for the public library service. He is the author of the collection Spitting out the mother tongue (Wurm Press, 2011) and the chapbooks Round the clock (Wurm Press, 2009) and Muses walk (yes but is it poetry), 2012. He was also Dublin regional editor for Succour magazine.
Notes: Printed in a numbered edition of 100.

"The poem 'Muses walk' was first published in my collection Spitting out the mother tongue. It's the result of an attempt to 'write' a specific street in Nicosia town centre, as it stood at a particular time. For this project, I produced a book of 16 new poems, each taking a line from 'Muses walk' as its title and starting point, remembering that Al-Mutanabbi Street could be an ordinary street anywhere and at any time, but with a unique and extraordinary story. And of course Nicosia continues to be scarred by its own history of violence and conflict"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is located in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the longstanding heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community for centuries. In response to the attack, a San Francisco poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil, rallied a community of international artists and writers to produce a collection of letterpress-printed broadsides (poster-like works on paper), artists' books (unique works of art in book form), and an anthology of writing, all focused on expressing solidarity with Iraqi booksellers, writers and readers. The coalition of contributing artists calls itself Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.