Ben is a poet and a sound designer.

Ben writes raw and deeply personal spoken-word poetry that reflects on his relationships, the world around him, and his place within it. He doesn’t confine to form, which invites consistent reinvention of how to tell a story. Then, he records them, mixes them, and designs an immersive sonic world around them to immerse you in. Below, you will find a range of stories — from long-form storytelling to short pieces that dip into rap. He personally describes each project and what it meant to him at the time of creation.

If his work speaks to you, and you would like to collaborate on a project of your own, please get in touch at bensterlin96@gmail.com.

Go Bright (2024)

‘Go Bright’ is my latest project, and my best yet. As a gay man in my late 20s, moving to a new place and starting a new life, the pieces in this album attempt take stock - to regard with fondness the values I uphold, relationships I cultivate, and healthy habits I adopt, and to embrace with bittersweet sentiment the things and people that growing up has forced me to leave behind for one reason or another. To put it reductively, my Saturn returns on ‘Go Bright’.

Sonically, this album contains my most diverse and immersive sound design yet. Each piece contains a multitude of music and found sound, each with its own aesthetic tailored to the tone and feeling of the piece. The vibe is different on every track, but they all come together as a cohesive body of work. The project is an hour-long, but is finished before you know it.

Judah in Jerusalem (2021)

This is the first full-length audio story that I wrote. Its writing style departs completely from the poetic structures I employ in my other projects. Instead, this project plays like a radio piece - one that you might find on shows like the NYT’s ‘Modern Love’ or WBEZ’s ‘This American Life’. This piece is full of play and whimsy - in its structure, sound design, and voice play. I wrote it as a birthday present for my partner at the time; he is a podcast producer, and I thought it would be an apt and sentimental birthday present. He did too.

Mourner’s Prose (2022)

This short collection (EP) of pieces reflects my healing process after suffering the end of my first relationship. The pieces are deeply rooted in a sense of place, and explores how disorienting it can be when those places are those you can no longer call yours. The final piece, “No Vacancy”, is an 18-minute odyssey centering about the parable of vacancy, or a lack of it. This album contains my rawest, stream-of-consciousness writing, and planted the seeds for the immersive sound design that was to come in the future.

Man Is (2020)

“Man Is”, my debut album as a spoken-word poet, is a meditation on loss and isolation, and how an unhealthy ideal of masculinity can alter and amplify these feelings for the worse. This project was my first foray into writing spoken-word poetry centred around, and excavating my interiority. Though sparse in its sound design, it contains some of my best, most diverse and prudent stylistic writing to date.