Our Streets: A Symphony Again
SSA choir and piano
*also available for solo voice and piano
5:57 approx.
Our Streets, a Symphony Again is a setting of the playful poem Too early to celebrate? by former West Hollywood poet laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace. The piece was commissioned by VOX Femina Los Angeles for their March 2023 concert – Made in LA: Identity and Belonging in the City of Angels – a concert that celebrates the city’s diversity.
The poem was commissioned by the city of West Hollywood as it began to reopen from COVID restrictions. It was written as a collaborative work that includes words and memories of its diverse residents answering the questions: What does “reopening” mean? What’s the same/different? How does history fit at that particular time and space?
The text’s ability to capture the city’s history of harboring the LGBTQ+ community spoke to me as a gay immigrant who has found home in Los Angeles – a place where I am fully able to celebrate my different intersectionalities. Moreover, as someone who was holed up in LA for the entirety of the lockdown, the poem perfectly encapsulates the post-pandemic anticipation, excitement, and uncertainty that we all experienced.
Too early to celebrate?
A collaborative poem using words and memories contributed by West Hollywood residents
The sunset strip
echoes, jacarandas bloom bright
after barren months.
Our streets symphony again
wild beyond gardens,
blaze honey
disco
french horns
& orange sherbet glow.
You, dear, never stopped
being a proud march, a palm
frond in ragged wind —
yes, you curled up
in last winter’s hush.
This city threads us
lonely
a plastic oasis of skin
sweaty with starlight.
But now it’s time for
gogo boots & guitar strings,
rooftop pools & history
between your lips
like a cold margarita
while the hot asphalt
dances.
Each of us a song:
equal parts party and protest.
Won’t you walk with me?
My glam aunts, my ferocious uncles,
my frankest friends — my chosen family,
look at all we have lost.
All that survives.
We are a house
built
on bones. We are dancing.
Dancing on bones.
-Brian Sonia-Wallace