Radical Hospitality.
Seven cafés, seven mahallas. Across Brooklyn and the East Village, rooted in the Uzbek tradition where the guest is sacred, the books are unbanned, and the door is open to everyone.
Smith St · Prospect Ave · Lorimer St · Prospect Park West · 7th Ave · Kent Ave · 2nd Ave · The Poetica Truck
The neighborhood
takes care of the guest
In the mahallas of Uzbekistan, hospitality isn't something one person does. It's something the whole neighborhood organizes. Tea and bread before questions. A place at the table before an invitation. The guest is sacred because the act of welcoming is how a community holds itself together.
Parviz Mukhamadkulov opened the first Poetica on Smith Street in 2020, weeks before his son Noor was born, in the middle of a pandemic that had closed most of the city. The name comes from the literary traditions of Samarkand. The philosophy comes from the mahalla he grew up in.
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In sum, hospitality
is a political act.
Banned Books
Every Poetica location keeps a shelf of books that someone, somewhere, has decided you shouldn't read. The shelf is not decorative. Take one.
Refugee Solidarity
Poetica was founded by an immigrant from Uzbekistan during a pandemic. The mahalla doesn't check papers. We work with local organizations supporting refugee resettlement and employment in Brooklyn. Because belonging is not a policy. It's a practice.
The Sacred Guest
Mehmon, the Uzbek concept of the sacred guest, means that whoever walks through the door is treated with unconditional dignity. Not as a customer. Not as a transaction. As someone who arrived and deserves to be welcomed.
Seven neighborhoods.
Seven mahallas.
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