by Henry E. (Hank) Scott
FROM: WHEOville.com

The West Hollywood City Council last night officially designated Brian Sonia-Wallace as the city’s poet laureate. Sonia-Wallace is the fourth person to assume the position, which was created in 2014.

The city poet laureate is an honorary position in which a person promotes a literary culture and specifically poetry. Previous city poet laureates include Steven Reigns (2014–16), Kim Dower (2016–18), and Charles Flowers (2018–20). The 2020-22 city poet laureate’s term begins today.

Brian Sonia-Wallace describes himself as an entrepreneur whose primary arts project is RENT Poet, which he says “creates collaborative poetry, mediated by the technology of the typewriter, with participants.”  RENT Poet provides poets who create spontaneous poems at events.  It has been commissioned to do so by a wide variety of organizations such as Google and YouTube, Amtrak and L.A.’s Taix restaurant, the Broad Stage, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, and the City of West Hollywood.

Sonia-Wallace’s work RENT Poet project has been featured in The Guardian and The New York Times. Harper Collins has published a book by him about poetry’s intersections with marginalized communities titled The Poetry of Strangers, What I Learned Traveling America With a Typewriter. Read Rest of Article Here