Meet Mauricio Moreno Nikolai Garcia

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mauricio Moreno Nikolai Garcia and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mauricio Moreno, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Our vision of Trenches Full of Poets was to bring to Long Beach poets of all genres from all over Los Angeles and beyond.

Being in the L.A. poetry scene, sometimes features get saturated and you see the same features over and over. We wanted to create an event for veterans and new poets. Most importantly, we wanted to bring a broad range of poetic voices with different styles—spoken word, page poetry, classical, avant garde, performance poetry, gothic poetry, and ranging a wide array of topics. We wanted to create a space for our readers to feel a sense of belonging, regardless of whether their poetry fit a certain mold or not.

Ultimately, we wanted to bring poetry to the people. As we like to start every show, you may just find your next favorite poet tonight.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
From Nikolai:

TFoP is in a good place. We’ve been around for three years already and have been invited to curate readings at different bookstores in Pomona, Berkely and San Francisco. The secret to our success is simple: we’re nice to people. We set our boundaries, but we try to be as welcoming as possible to anyone who comes to one of our events. When you’re kind to people they usually return the favor.

From Mauricio:

I think consistency is always a factor when considering success. Before we incorporated the open mic portion, TFoP was exclusively a reading series so the main focus were the featured poets. The open mic brought many opportunities to the night, including finding our next featured guests for future months. It came with some challenges and we’ve learned to adapt when things go off script. Personally, I’ve found that the best nights are the ones when the poets bounce themes back and forth and decide to share a piece because someone else’s courage or vulnerability. I try to be cognizant and present as a cohost and try to listen with intent so I can reference back something I learned or remembered from the readers, whether it was a dope line or a tender moment, I’ve found there’s some connective tissue within the poetry and finding that thread always fascinates me.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
From Nikolai:

In Long Beach, a good place to start is the Shoreline Aquatic Park where you can just walk around, think, people-watch, and enjoy the views—and if that gets tiring you have The Pike and Aquarium of the Pacific just a few steps away. For brunch, I recommend Claires, which is located at the Long Beach Museum of Art and offers a delicious menu and more great views of the beach. At night, the best place to grab a drink and listen to some great DJs, is The Grasshopper, a great bar that we visit frequently after poetry events.

From Mauricio:

Long Beach is known for its plethora of diverse neighborhoods. I would start the day at Gusto Bread because they have some of the best smelling fresh bread and coffee on 4th street. Get there early because they sell out by midday. Next, I’d recommend a quick stop at MOLAA to check out some of their exhibits, as there’s always artist showcases and poetry events happening there. The Pike isn’t too far from MOLAA and is probably the best place for visitors to get a good grasp of DT Long Beach. It has everything you’d want, but specifically, I’d take them to Michoacana’s Ice Cream for some paletas or aguas frescas. If you want to go tourist-y, you have the Aquarium or the Queen Mary, the latter having some bars for a drink. For lunch, you can’t go wrong with Lola’s back on 4th or you can check out 3rd street which has one of my favorite Pho spots 123 Pho. In the evening, walk down the pier for a nightly stroll and go to Ammatoli’s for dinner if you’re feeling fancy. If you want some good pizza, there’s also The 4th Horseman. Finish up your night at the Grasshopper for good drinks and great music.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
We would have never been able to create a poetic space without an actual space to call our own. For that, we have to give a huge shoutout to Chris Giaco, owner of the bookstore Page Against the Machine in Long Beach. PATM has been Trenches’ home for 3+ years and has hosted many authors, poetry book releases, memoirists and activists and continues to be a beacon for our communities to convene and share resources. Every second Thursday.

Chris opened his doors for us since the beginning and has been a true comrade and advocate for the arts. After every show, we encourage our participants to buy from the store to keep this place running. Thank you for supporting poetry and community, Chris! We love you!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trenchesfullofpoets/?hl=en – TFoP page

Other: hellokommie – Nikolai’s IG
soul_onf_ire – Mauricio’s IG

Image Credits
D Hideo Maruyama