On a Friday evening in Highland Park, before the pandemic, Mauricio Moreno showed up at They’re Just Words, hosted by Ingrid Calderon-Collins at Book Show Books. I don’t remember the poems he read at the open mic, but I remember being drawn in by his words. Words that painted a sensitive soul.

Just like me, this Colombian American from Elizabeth, New Jersey became a regular at They’re Just Words before a rent increase caused Book Show to close its doors. Moreno had moved to Los Angeles to “fulfill his life mission of being a writer and sharing the stories of others to bring readers closer together and heal the world.” His mission to heal the world through stories is seen in the work he pens and in conversations, as Moreno talks about personally breaking the generational cycle of male machismo that runs deep in the Colombian community. The Latin lover trope.

As Moreno demonstrates in his poem “beyond the glass” he understands this path to enlightenment well.

     the path took him
     deep inside, unbound
     by borders and boundaries,
     away from physical worlds…

     he soon found that
     the strength he sought
     was never a blade after all

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Since I first saw Moreno step in front of the mic at They’re Just Words, he’s gone on to work with DSTL Arts, an L.Á. based 501c3 nonprofit arts mentorship organization that inspires, teaches, and hires emerging artists from underserved communities; co-host the open mic at Page Against the Machine, Trenches Full of Poets; and write his debut collection of poetry Anatomy of a Flame through the Community Literature Initiative.

Recently, on a warm, still, Sunday in July, writers—Andrés Sanchez, Poet Laureate of Pomona Ceasar Avelar, Ingrid Calderon Collins and Karo Ska, to name a few—arrived at the Sims Library of Poetry in South Central, as Colombian Pupusas and other Colombian food was served.

Writers reconnected in the spread-out landscape of Los Ángeles, under the blue tarp that provided some relief from the July heat that was melting the vast majority of the country. Maricio’s reading, thankfully, was taking place inside the library, surrounded by bookshelves full of poetry.

We were all there for one reason: the book release for Mauricio Moreno’s Anatomy of a Flame.

Once inside, Jessica Wilson Cardenas, founder of Los Angeles Poet Society and Los Angeles Poet Society Press, and publisher of Moreno’s book, hosted.

Wilson-Cardenas had printed up programs for the release party on photo paper. “Book Launch Party!” it read across the top. Four guest poets read first: Andrés Sanchez, Antonieta Villamil, Ceasar Avelar and David Morin. Avelar read a poem he wrote specifically for the event, that came out of a conversation he had with Moreno about masculinity. It prompted Avelar to think more about what masculinity is, how it functions, how it affects others and how he inhabits masculinity and is that the kind of person he wants to be. That’s not something he’d really thought about before, he said, to think about masculinity, as it’s something you learn how to do naturally from seeing those around you perform it and you end up performing it instinctually.

When it was time for the man of the hour, Juan “Flautista” Cardenas and his band set up to accompany Moreno’s poems with music. The influenced mix of Jazz, blues, cumbia, Latin Rock, among others, added an extra element of richness to the performance that featured heavy and emotionally powerful poems. The poem that stood out most was “you must know Pablo Escobar.”

     that my country,
     full of rich jungles and Amazonian rainforests,
     with fauna and flora of every shade of color,
     the most species of birds in the world,

     with primos playing futbol in dirt fields…

     the birth place of cumbia and
     pacemakers…

already demonstrated what his family’s homeland—Colombia—truly is. Still, with a bit of prideful emotion in his voice, upon completion, he took a moment to do just that. Moreno wanted to ensure that everyone knew that Columbia is more than what, as he says in the poem:

     she learns from American news,
     the novellas that glorify [Escobar], the
     shows that humanize him…

Remember, one of the poem’s butterfly effects says, everything in life is more than what it appears on the surface.

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Before Moreno stepped away from the mic, he surprised the audience by singing. He sang one song that I didn’t know or recognize. Not a singer, never having heard him sing, I was surprised by the quality of his voice. That he would think of doing it at a reading, much less his release party. When I spoke to Moreno afterward, he said one always needs to have an Ace up their sleeve.

When the audience gave Mauricio Moreno a standing ovation—I never remembered seeing one at a reading or release party—I wanted to sit there, let his words sink in. To inhabit them. Contemplate the themes and ideas he expressed, that push back on societal norms. That ask us to turn inward. That originated from a voice both unapologetic and thought-provoking.