Who Invaded You, Baghdad?

Description:	al-Utri, Ibn (author)Bernstein, Bonnie (printer)Beavers, Leigh Ann (printer); Original Broadside: Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadsides Arthur and Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts at the FAU Libraries Letterpress. Edition of 6.This broadside is from the collection of a historic suite of hand-printed literary broadsides which are a part of the Al-Mutannabi Street Starts Here broadside project at the Arthur and Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts at the FAU Libraries. The verses in our broadside were recited by bookseller Naim al-Shatry as a curfew was lifted on Al-Mutanabbi Street, six months after a car bombing devastated Iraq’s historic book market. He attributed the verses to Ibn al-Utri, a poet of the early ninth century lamenting the destruction of Baghdad during a caliphate dispute. The occasion for the reading and the verses were reported in a New York Times article by Damien Cave on September 14, 2007. We were both struck by the metaphor of a menacing crow swooping down over the streets of Baghdad, dividing the people—more than a millennium ago and again today. Leigh Ann envisioned the bird in silhouette, its wing span effectively dividing the page; Bonnie set type accordingly, allowing the crow to invade the poem, fragmenting the text and leaving words in isolation. She chose Lydian type for its calligraphic style, resembling crow tracks. We printed in black and gray inks on gray Pescia, reflecting the ashy monochromes of Al-Mutanabbi Street after the blast. The last line of the poem is unprinted: I swear by God, there are people lost who, whenever I remember them, my eyes start flowing with tears. We remember and honor them with this broadside.
Created By:	al-Utri, Ibn; Bernstein, Bonnie; Beavers, Leigh Ann
Contributor(s):	Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition
Publisher:	Woods Creek Press (Lexington, Virginia)
Source:	http://iuidigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/AMSSH/id/115
Collection:	Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition Collection
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Copyright:	In Copyright
Subjects:	broadsides letterpress printing art

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