They dared to speak the truth
By: Sarah Reith ; poetry by David Smith-Ferri
Contributors: Smith-Ferri, David, 1960- poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Sarah Reith]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Mendocino County, California, USA]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 28
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; Truth (Aesthetics); Compassion; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: "They dared to speak the truth is a sampling of poems from David Smith-Ferri's two poetry collections, With children like your own and Battlefield without borders, about his visits to war torn Iraq and Afghanistan. In my selection, ordering, and illustration of these pieces, I tried to visually restate the qualities of compassion and investigation that his poetry conveyed to me. David's poems are a mix of interview transcripts, straight-up crime reporting on the atrocities of war, and lyrical meditations on love and the beauty of the Afghan landscape. This is an overwhelming body of work - but al-Mutanabbi Street is a project of witness, and there is no more overwhelming experience than that of modern warfare. If I could sum up this collaboration in one word, it would be 'testify.' In my illustrations of David's poems, I tried to draw attention to one moment in each, so as to emphasise what stood out to me as the driving point. I find that human hands are deeply expressive and spiritually powerful, so I used them extensively in my artwork to invite readers and viewers to take a closer look at the poems and have an emotional response to the stories and voices David presents. I have read that the oldest artwork on the most ancient caves was signed by a charcoal-smudged hand. In my own small way, using charcoal and pastel, I have also tried to create a body of work that will testify to our common humanity. There are three copies of this book in existence. Each poem is accompanied by a drawing and some kind of structure that partially obscures the text, so that the reader/viewer has to interact with the book, peeling aside a layer of distraction or obscurity in order to come in contact with the stories and poems"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: Medium: Ribbon, gauze, burnt paper, tissue paper, beads, and dirt. The illustrations were made with fairly conventional media, including charcoal, pastel, watercolour, crayon, and graphite.

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.