Chris Bernstorf (Poetry/Spoken Word)

If Matthew Dickman and Pablo Neruda conceived a child while crowdsurfing at a punk show and then raised the newborn in one of those bio tubes from a sci-fi movie, amalgamating the pseudo-amniotic-fluid from church, Chipotle, and pop culture, then you’d have something akin to Chris Bernstorf’s poetry. Begun as a passion project while studying creative writing at Lycoming College, Bernstorf’s poetry has since taken him to 48 states and 7 other countries. He has clocked in nearly 600 performances in every imaginable space, from living rooms to a micronation to bars to churches to a converted Soviet airfield to art spaces to bathrooms. In fact, there’s at least a 40% chance he and his wife are sleeping on your floor/couch tonight. Whether it’s a post-rock length journey or a shout-along or something in between, a belief in love at the bottom unites all of his poems. Bernstorf’s poetry (and the artist himself) believes in God for all and in love uniting and bridging everyone of us to each other and to God. His work is an open hand, a smile, a hug, a handshake, an invitation to conversation, and, ultimately, to love. He makes all of his work available for free via Bandcamp and his website out of a deep conviction that art belongs to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, and that the Gospel is the same. It’s poetry for people, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Soli Deo Gloria