Meet the Traveling Writer Penning Strangers’ Poems

(Ben Bernthal)

BY LAUREN PARKER

Ben Bernthal would like to write a poem for you. You just have to pick three words. 

“A lot of people don’t know they like poetry,” Bernthal says, now based in San Francisco and a regular presence near the Ferry Building and in the Mission. Set up with a banner, a chair, and his typewriter, customers are encouraged to give him three words and get a personalized and bespoke poem typed right in front of their eyes. Like watching the flick of a chef’s wrist or the movement of a pianist’s fingers, Bernthal offers more than just a printed poem but a participation that his customers are desperately seeking. “People are eager to connect with the musicality of language.” 

Strangers’ Poems is Bernthal’s improvisational poetry project that he’s ran for years all across the country. Originally from Indianapolis, Bernthal attended a creative writing class wherein a professor told him he was a poet. Since then he’s been traveling the world busking poems to strangers and yet-to-become friends on his typewriter. 

His project is rare, making poems for people who aren’t in the literature community. The pathway of a traditional poet is convoluted and confusing. It’s described as a continuous process of pouring your soul out into the gutter hoping it mixes well with the others lying broken within it. And then someday you somehow get a book deal. But Bernthal’s work is about holding space, not taking it up. Receiving emotional exchange and stories from people in order to create them something singular and special. 

“Custom poems take a certain buy-in of vulnerability, trust, and money,” Bernthal says. He also offers premade mystery poems for people who are more comfortable with “choosing for yourself instead of pulling words outside of yourself.”

(Ben Bernthal)

So far, Bernthal has been tacked up on fridges, framed in living rooms, and even tattooed on someone’s back. And instead of working on a book of poetry, he sticks to broadsides and experiences. He offers ASMR with the cutting open of envelopes, offering a multisensory experience, and is innovating the project for galleries and events. “I receive so much value from what I do,” he says about finding new ways to experiment with his project. 

In the early days of the pandemic, Bernthal arrived to San Francisco finding the city hungry for connection. Bernthal has since made San Francisco his home base, a perfect place to innovate, experiment, and refine the project before taking it back on the road. “I’m honored to be trusted with people’s shit,” Bernthal says. 

His poems are offered at suggested tiers, making him one of the few paid poets I actually know. In a world and country that expects artists to run on the labor of love, artist’s dreams and art die in the gutter all the time. Kicked around or mourned while people have to focus on making a living. And with AI offering the possibility of “being an artist” to computer programs, and further tanking the creative market, Bernthal is still optimistic. 

“People ought to value art; I know it matters significantly to people,” Bernthal says. “AI is never going to hold space for somebody. There’s no way that the interactions I’m having can be replaced by even an embodied robot.” Bernthal sees what he does as connection and community, a true busking experience of having a regular corner who hangs with everyone from tourists to people living on the streets, “You’re part of the fabric of a community just by showing up.”

The downsides of the job? Other than general weather troubles, “once people know you have a typewriter, they start giving you typewriters.”

Strangers’ Poems always come from a typewriter, and sometimes with a bit of extra artistic flair. (Ben Bernthal)

(Melati Citrawireja)