For centuries, Al-Mutanabbi Street has been the intellectual and artistic centre of Baghdad. Books on carpets spilled from sidewalks. Conversations echoed through tea shops, thick with smoke. During Saddam Hussein’s rule, it was the neighourhood of dissidents. After the American invasion, it was full of hope for a new freedom, but that didn’t last long with the rise of fundamentalist insurgents. Finally, on March 5, 2007, a car bomb exploded on the famed street, a direct assault on intellectual freedom and expression in an increasingly intolerant post-invasion Iraq.

After learning about the attack, San Fransisco-based poet Beau Beausoleil wanted to do something about it. He wanted to connect the intellectual, artistic and literary community in Baghdad with the same types of communities throughout the world. He organized readings and contacted printers to run broadsides (large designed pages featuring written work) of contributed writing. Those broadsides are sold at events to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. His Mutanabbi Street memorial readings have since spread. The slogan — Mutanabbi Street starts here — means we are all connected, and that an assault on one intellectual and creative centre means an attack on all.

On May 14, Mutanabbi Street will be linked, at least metaphorically, to Kensington Road. Zaid Shlah, a Canadian poet based in California, will bring a memorial reading to Pages on Kensington. “This will be the first reading in Calgary,” says Shlah, who is currently doing a residency at The Banff Centre. “The exhibition angle, unfortunately, won’t be there, because a lot of these broadsides have been sold off. And the ones that remain or have been commissioned are actually going to be donated to the Iraqi National Library. So, the remainder of these broadsides are all going to be archived in Iraq.”

At Pages, poets, writers, activists and Iraqis will share their work and the words of Iraqis affected by the bombing and the subsequent intellectual chill that descended on this once-vibrant street. “There are going to be some activists there, some Iraqis, and they’re going to be reading responses to Al-Mutanabbi Street directly from Iraqis, and how they have felt about what’s been going on there, what’s been taken from them, what are the causes, what are the effects,” says Shlah.

The evening will feature Sheri-D Wilson, derek beaulieu, Richard Harrison, Dijla Al-Rekabi, Bob Wilson and Shlah, among others. Some of the readings will be featured in an upcoming book: Mutanabbi Street Anthology.