Book exhibit at John Rylands Library, Manchester

Beau Beausoleil, the San Francisco bookseller and poet who has worked tirelessly on the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project, sent out this email today to participants in the project. (He says it so much better than I can.) He encourages us to "make a great deal of noise about this exhibit" - which I am only too happy to do. When some of the books were exhibited at the Westminster Reference Library last year, it was a wonderful display - such care and ingenuity were evident in the making of these books. An anthology of writing, going back to the start of the project, has been published - click here and "look inside" to read The Bookseller's Story, written shortly after the event.

"The al-Mutanabbi Street printer and book artist Annette Disslin (Germany) has posted a beautiful blog entry marking the opening of the al-Mutanabbi Street exhibit at the John Rylands Library (Manchester, UK) today.

 

www.disslin-an.net:

The exhibit is beginning with about 150 artists' books, but the John Rylands will be adding books to the exhibit as Sarah Bodman and I forward them additional project books as they arrive. The next four months will see the exhibit swell to our goal of 260 artists books.

 

If you are in the U.K. you have what I would describe as a 'moral duty' to sally forth and see this exhibit. These are your kin, your sister and brother book artists from around the globe who have made al-Mutanabbi Street start at the door of the John Rylands. As a poet I have always had a fondness for pilgrimages and pilgrims, please become one for this exhibit, get there by foot, bus, train, auto, or plane, get there early or late, and leave a cairn so other pilgrims will see that you have been to al-Mutanabbi Street!!

 

And I would encourage you to make a great deal of noise about this exhibit whether by facebook, youtube, your blog, telephone, twitter, or local newsprint. Spread the word!! Travel there with friends and family. And remember, the John Rylands and Sarah are still open to book art related ideas that might help enhance the exhibit during its run at the John Rylands."

Do go to Annette's blog and look at the images in her post. Or go to the website that Sarah Bodman has compiled, with images of all the books in the project - http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/mutanmain12.htm

The exhibition in Manchester is at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, until July 29th. In London, we're planning a poetry reading on the anniversary of the bombing (5 March) that will have a book display as well - more news on that later.