{"id":12924,"date":"2020-02-15T13:59:57","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T21:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000007358"},"modified":"2020-02-15T14:28:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T22:28:50","slug":"video-poet-and-travelers-connect-to-create-the-poetic-at-long-beach-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/video-poet-and-travelers-connect-to-create-the-poetic-at-long-beach-airport","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Poet and travelers connect to create the poetic at Long Beach Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Valentines Day poems for travelers LGB\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dyTfEwiSDGk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Brian Sonia-Wallace is a poet who has made a career of offering his storytelling expertise as he creates on-the-spot poems for strangers. This Valentine&#8217;s Day, the poet was seated at Long Beach Airport where he offered travelers the chance to take home a free, custom love poem for anyone willing to spend a few minutes sharing their stories.<\/p>\n<p>The poems, he says, can be for anyone, including yourself, but of those who encounter the typewriter poet, almost all ask him to write for someone else.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My wife&#8217;s going to love it,&#8221; said Curt Zeiszler a software engineer who sat down with the poet before heading home to Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>Sonia-Wallace&#8217;s process is simple and based entirely on a brief conversation. He asks participants to share a fond memory, from there the LA-based poet chats with them, building the poem with whatever thoughts, ideas or off-hand quips his guests will share and weaves the information in with his own creativity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s about the poem, but it&#8217;s also about that moment of connection,&#8221; Sonia-Wallace said. &#8220;It&#8217;s about the way that we can share space and time as people and have a record of that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Channeling his talent into a commission-based writing service he calls, RENT Poet, the HarperCollins author has shared his on-demand poetry all over the country. He&#8217;s written thousands of poems for guests at weddings, festivals, corporate parties, even the Emmy&#8217;s. In all the eight years he&#8217;s been doing it, the reactions are priceless.<\/p>\n<p>People laugh, some cry. Others, touched by the sentimental prose, often ask for another one.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll read it to her year, after year, after year,&#8221; promised Gloria St. Dennis from Boston. The poem she pocketed was for was her six-month-old granddaughter.<\/p>\n<p>The poetry experience was the first in a series of pop-ups the LGB airport is putting together in hopes of making air travel more enjoyable for people. &#8220;Make Flying Fun Again&#8221; aims to delight and distract travelers from the stress of flying, harkening back to a time when flying was a more enjoyable, even glamorous experience.<\/p>\n<p><em>You can find out more about Brian Sonia-Wallace at his website, <a href=\"https:\/\/rentpoet.com\/\">RENT Poet<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some Valentines Day travelers at the Long Beach Airport flew home with a custom love poem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":70861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[8767],"class_list":["post-12924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12924"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=12924"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}