By Brian Dunlap

Friday night at Book Show in Highland Park was a goodbye of sorts. Local poets from places such as Santa Clarita, Mar Vista and Long Beach gathered there as if moths drawn to a flame. Drawn to share their experiences. They’d been coming to Book Show on the third Friday of the month for the past two years to share in community at Friday Night Poetry: They’re Just Words, hosted by L.A. poet Ingrid Calderon-Collins.

Book Show Books opened five years ago on Figueroa Street in a rapidly gentrifying Highland Park in Northeast L.A., not far from the famous Chicken Boy statue, standing 22 feet high atop what is now an art gallery. Owner Jen Hitchcock wanted a change after working in the music business’ publishing and licensing side. In a VoyageLA interview she said she wanted to “open a book shop and creative space that was a true representation of who she was.” Her vision was to “create a shop space that preserved and championed books…and to foster an environment that was conducive to creating and sharing ideas, words and art.” A place Hitchcock said, “became what I think is a community.”

On Friday night all the poets in attendance would attest to how Book Show, and especially Friday Night Poetry, had become a community they loved. Calderon-Collins specifically refrained from booking any features for December as she wanted the night to be about the community she’s built. This was the final Friday Night Poetry at Book Show in Highland Park.

At the end of the month Book Show Books will close its doors. Hitchcock’s landlord nullified the agreed upon lease made before the woman she shared the space with Madame Pamita, who ran her Parlour of Wonders in the back, left for another location. He then implemented a 60-percent increase Hitchcock couldn’t afford. However, Book Show is not gone. Hitchcock said she’ll reopen the store in The Valley, with her friend Sabrina Dropkick, in May.

When the poets stood at the mic to read, from Karo Ska, Nikolai Garcia, Mauricio Cornejo, Mauricio Moreno, among others, myself included, we told our stories about how we started coming to this open mic and what it’s meant to us. The common thread was feeling out of place in society, for being a person of color in America, not fitting into societal constructed stereotypes and thus, not comfortable in our own skin (loving sci-fi, fantasy, a book nerd, etc. and for some having that attached to thet expectations society expects from people of color) and finding an accepting place where we can be ourselves and tell our own stories with like-minded people. For some it was more emotional than for others, as voices cracked and tears welled up.

Ska, for example, read the poem she was working on when she sprained her ankle. I remembered that month, several months before when she showed up to Friday Night Poetry in a boot, explaining she’d gone out walking to get some fresh air and to clear her head at her local park. She’d became distracted by working out a poem in her head and didn’t notice the pinecone she tripped on. There was a sense of recognition and remembrance in the room of, “Oh yeah, that poem she mentioned. I know what Karo is talking about.” Several of us joked with Ska about how fortunate she was that the poem turned out so well, that her sprained ankle wasn’t for nothing.

Even with Book Show relocating, everyone knows the impact its loss will have on the Highland Park community. Naomi Carnejo, Highland Park native and resident spoke to that.

Carnejo spoke about the ease with which she’s been able to pop in and converse with Hitchcock and that no matter how she’s feeling, Hitchcock brightens her day. How the store has become a a stable and familiar part of Carnejo’s rapidly gentrifying community.

The move of Book Show Books to The Valley will make it difficult or impossible for some to be able to get to its new location to continue or create new community.

However, host Ingrid Calderon-Collins did share some good news. She’s following Jen Hitchcock to The Valley, where she’ll continue to host Friday Night Poetry: They’re Just Words at Book Show Books.