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. "This book is based on the 6th century pre-Islamic poem of Imru' al Qays, one of seven Muallaqa or 'suspended' poems said to have been written in gold and hung on the walls of the Ka'ba in Mecca. In it, the poet describes his sadness he feels on arriving at the site abandoned by his beloved. Later I learned that the translation takes many liberties, but it's beautiful in it's own right. I also learned that 'there's a long tradition of applying the "standing by the ruins" trope to contemporary civil war contexts and other military/political disasters in the Arab world, ' so it turns out that I am following a tradition. The Arabic texts were copied by Khadijeh Mohieddin, Ali Alnamous and their 8-year-old daughter, Sandra. They are from Syria, where the suffering continues"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.