At LAX, a poet with a typewriter writes poems just for you

On a Wednesday morning at LAX airport, a traveler named Nikki Hexum started to cry — not because of a flight delay or bad news, but because of a poem. She had just met Brian Sonia-Wallace, the poet laureate of Los Angeles, who was sitting at a vintage 1940s typewriter in Terminal 1. He was writing free, custom poems for anyone who stopped to talk with him. Hexum was on her way to Nashville for work, and after she told Brian about her trip, he typed a poem just for her and read it aloud — and it moved her to tears.

Sonia-Wallace has spent more than a decade bringing poetry to surprising places. He started in 2010 at a Metro line opening in Los Angeles, using a borrowed typewriter to write poems for strangers. After losing his job in 2014, he tried making a living from poetry by setting up at farmers markets and festivals, where people could tip him. Over time, he began writing at weddings and corporate events before partnering with the city of Los Angeles.

In April, Sonia-Wallace was named the poet laureate of Los Angeles — an official title given to a poet who represents a city or region. Since then, he has visited the L.A. Zoo and city animal services to share poetry with the public. He believes that a poet's job is to make people slow down and think. 'What a poet can do is create pause,' he says. 'Like, hold on, what am I thinking? What am I feeling?'

At LAX, Sonia-Wallace set up his typewriter and quickly drew a crowd. Travelers stopped to share their stories — some were heading to funerals, weddings, or family reunions, while others talked about personal struggles. In just minutes, he turned each person's story into a poem. Soon, a line of eager travelers formed to get their own custom poem.

On the table next to his typewriter, Sonia-Wallace placed a sign that read: 'Retro Chat GPT.' It was a playful nod to AI tools like ChatGPT, which can generate text automatically. But Sonia-Wallace's poems are different — they come from a real human conversation and are made just for one person. A banner behind him summed up his mission: 'Everyone deserves a poem.'

Traveler Silvia Portillo was waiting to fly to Colorado to attend her sister's wedding. She asked Sonia-Wallace for a poem she could give her sister as a gift on the big day. 'I thought it would be really cool if he made a personalized one for her, a little extra wedding gift,' Portillo said. She walked away with something rare — a one-of-a-kind poem written in just minutes.

Sarah Cifarelli, the director of the LAX arts program, works to bring art and culture to the airport so travelers enjoy more than just gates and gift shops. She was excited when Sonia-Wallace reached out about doing an installation at LAX. 'Airports can feel very transactional with lots of logistics and very functional,' she said. 'Being able to engage with someone like Brian brings more humanity to that journey.' She plans to bring him back in the coming months, along with other poets and a pianist.

Sonia-Wallace says the old typewriter is a big part of his act, because the loud clacking sound naturally pulls people in. 'If you see someone with a notebook or a laptop, that person wants to be left alone. If you see someone with a typewriter, there's something happening here,' he says. He now owns 10 typewriters and stores them in his car trunk because his studio apartment has run out of space — he even keeps one in his bathroom.

He sees his work as a kind of performance, not just writing, comparing himself to a pastor or a tarot card reader. The conversations can get surprisingly deep, with travelers sharing personal tragedies and private worries. 'My favorite people will be like, I didn't know this was going to be therapy,' he says. 'It's whatever you want to use it for.'

For Hexum, the experience was about more than just a poem — it reminded her why human connection matters in a world where so much communication is handled by AI. She gripped her freshly printed poem as she walked toward her gate, ready to board her flight to Nashville. 'I'm gonna treasure this forever,' she said, and then she floated off into the sky.