Poets Oak Cliff: The little shop that wants to expand your mind.

Last month Marco and Kelsi Cavazos, along with their best friend of 15 years Russell Hargraves opened Poets Oak Cliff, a small writer’s workshop/bookstore hybrid that combines the passion of all three.

Marco holds the title as “resident writer”. He sits in his wooden chair, espresso in hand and cozies up to his typewriter where he crafts, signs, and frames his poetry before placing it for sale. Two additional typewriters sit at each corner window at a table and chair big enough for one to bode passersby into creativity.

The familial atmosphere is unavoidable with the Cavazos’ young daughter greeting those who step inside. Kelsi Cavazos dreams of handing the bookshop down to her in a few decades. Though not a writer, Kelsi has a love for books that’s evident as she goes through the boxes of new arrivals, taking her time to talk about each one.

Books of all backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs line the walls. Hargraves has the least experience of the trio regarding a background in literature. His passion lies more in differing viewpoints lining the bookshelves to allow everyone to consider new ideas that prompt civil discourse.

The shop’s goal is to broaden the mind and creativity of those within the Bishop Arts District neighborhood where it sits. As for larger goals of their own, they prefer what they have. The friends admittedly hardly ever cross the Trinity River anymore, instead opting to stay in the Bishop Arts neighborhood where all three also reside.

Poets Oak Cliff desires to be a single store that Bishop Arts residents can escape, but don’t look for them on your local street corner. In the words of Mr. Cavazos himself “we’re not looking for some giant online presence, or multiple locations, we’re just trying to be a neighborhood bookshop.”