FROM: LAPL.org

The Poems on Air Podcast is a weekly reading of poetry by Los Angeles Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson.

This week’s espisode features West Hollywood’s Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace. Lynne Thompson reads his poem “The Comfort Ghost.”

Brian Sonia-Wallace was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in Culver City, California, and Santiago, Chile.

In 2012, Sonia-Wallace set up a typewriter on the street with a sign that said “Poetry Store” and accidentally started his business: RENT Poet. Sonia-Wallace’s mission with RENT Poet is to connect people through ink in a wire​d-in world. Alone or with the network of poets he’s built, Sonia-Wallace writes custom poems and creates poetry events and community engagement.

Sonia-Wallace holds an MA in Sustainable Development from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. The author of the memoir The Poetry of Strangers (Harper Collins, 2020), his other publications include the chapbook, I sold these poems, now I want them back (Yak Press, 2016), a chapter on poetry-as-placemaking for Art & The City (Routledge, 2018), and writing in The Guardian, LitHub, and Rolling Stone.

Sonia-Wallace curates an LGBTQ+ poetry column for The Pride LA and teaches creative writing through UCLA Writers’ Extension and Get Lit—Words Ignite. He has held residences from Amtrak, Dollar Shave Club, and the Mall of America, and runs the custom poetry business RENT Poet. Sonia-Wallace is the 4th Poet Laureate of the City of West Hollywood. In 2021, he received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. Listen to Poem Here