Thirty-three beads on a string
Subtitle: a poem
By: by Zaid Shlah ; [designed and printed by Mike Day]
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Day, Mike, book artist, printer; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Long Day Press; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Long Day Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Sunnyvale, California
Language: eng
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; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Other titles: 33 beads on a string
Description: "This poem has taken several forms over the past six years, first as a broadside after the first call for printers, then as a traditional book, next a mini-book, and finally, an accordion book. After many readings, I realized the poem had to take the form of a tasbih. This final version contains three 'beads' per page over eleven pages, printed and joined together by one single string. Poetry, part of the bedrock of Iraqi culture, can never be destroyed."

"Day, who was an original participant of the Broadside project, has taken on to work with a Shlah poem, something he wanted to do with the broadside project, but could not at that time. This poem has come to mean more than the project to Day, it is a portrait of Iraq - its people, heritage, history and music"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: Printed in an edition of 5.

"Copyright Zaid Shlah from Taqsim, Frontenc House, 2006, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from the author."

"For Iraq."

Material: letterpress with an accordion binding, fabric; paper used is Fabriano Ingres; type is Nicolas Cochin.

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.

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.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.