The diameter of the bomb
By: printed by Bill Denham & Kim Vanderheiden ; poetry by Yehuda Amichai ; Chana Bloch, translator
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Vanderheiden, Kim, printer, artist; Amichai, Yehuda, poet; Bloch, Chana, 1940-2017, translator; Mitchell, Stephen, 1943- translator; Painted Tongue Studios; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Painted Tongue Studios
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Oakland, 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
Description: "I support the freedom to educate oneself, the freedom to pursue one's own interest, to follow one' own curiosity, without risk to life and limb, nor the life and limb of one's children and parents. I saw in Al-Mutanabbi Street a striving towards that freedom. I cannot pretend to understand what is happening or why. I don't know how to place a value on that freedom in order to know at what point the cost is too high. Death and Life are both huge. Generations of freedom into the future are huge. The pain of being wounded, living in constant fear, grieving for a lost child, a father, a mother, a lover, is huge. The ability to raise your children and grandchildren with all of the hope for the best education and opportunity the world can offer is huge. In this poem, the violence of the bomb blast reaches to infinity. Freedom to pursue happiness and develop one's ideas and passions can do that, too. For me, this raises questions related to book burning, suppression, and quality of life without freedoms. 'Who thought it was a good idea to blow up Mutanabbi Street, and why?'"--Bill Denham's statement from The Arthur & Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts (viewed June 22, 2015).

"Kim Vanderheiden is the owner and creative director of Painted Tongue Studios, including the letterpress shop, Painted Tongue Press, and the Painted Tongue Community, a resource for Oakland area artists"--Statement from the artist's personal website (viewed June 22, 2015).
Notes: "English translation copyright 1986, 1996 by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. Reprinted by permission of Chana Bloch."

Printed in an edition of 12.

Letterpress; cut and folded paper.

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.