Poema Abierto is Washington, D.C.’s first Spanish-language open mic: A space that took me two years to bring to life.

In that time, I felt firsthand how few doors opened for poets who wanted to write and perform in their native tongue. I had been active in the spoken word scene since 2019, often performing at four open mics a week, driving as far as Baltimore and Virginia just to share my poetry on stage. Yet the obstacle was never the work itself, it was the resistance from hosts, fellow poets, and audiences who treated Spanish-language poetry as an inconvenience. One host, annoyed at hearing me perform in Spanish month after month, cut my mic two minutes into my five minute slot for three shows in a row. The humiliation left me so furious, I considered never performing poetry again. But instead, it became the turning point: I realized the only way forward was to create the kind of space I had been searching for all along.

That’s what Poema Abierto became. Finding a home at BloomBars was more than securing a venue, it was building a sanctuary where poets could speak in their mother tongue without apology, and where voices like mine could finally belong. Since September 2023, every first Sunday has become a circle of poetry, music, and storytelling. What started as a search for a stage has grown into a family of artists and neighbors who remind each other that Spanish, in all its rhythms and accents, deserves its place in the city’s cultural heartbeat.

Poema Abierto isn’t just an open mic, it’s the space I once wished existed, now shared with anyone who needs it.