Poets Bookshop, which opened in 2019 in the Bishop Arts District in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, Tex., is expanding. KERA reported that owner Marco Cavazos is launching a second location, in the city's Deep Ellum district, doubling the original bookstore's footprint with a 1,200-square-foot space. Cavazos anticipates hosting a grand opening for Poets Bookshop in Deep Ellum in late March.
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| Poets Bookshop Oak Cliff | |
Cavazos said he wants to expand to do more community-centered events: "Oak Cliff and Deep Ellum are really different neighborhoods. And so that was a big appeal for me just to reach more of Dallas and have that ability to expand and keep growing."
Using money from the Bishop Arts store, selling his own books, and doing his own renovations helped Cavazos bring his vision to life, KERA noted, adding that he built half of the bookshelves, and patched and painted the walls. "Way more work than I anticipated," Cavazos said. "I did not expect to be doing so much hard work, you know, scrubbing and scraping and painting."
For the Deep Ellum store, he plans to add more tables, chairs and stronger wi-fi to encourage more in-store writing. He also hopes to host writer's groups and workshops to cultivate a local literary community.
While the Oak Cliff location carries a wide range of literature, the new store "will have a more specific selection," KERA wrote, including a banned books section, philosophy section, and activism section as the first things customers see.
"I think a big part of a bookstore, especially an indie bookstore, is to be thought-provoking, to push back where you see injustice, especially attempts to silence intellectual wisdom and diversity," Cavazos said.