The Tattooed Poets Project: Seth Berg

Today's poem from a tattooed poet comes to us from Seth Berg.

His book Muted Lines from Someone Else's Memory will be published by Dark Sky Books in July.

Here is one of the poems from that collection:

Aphasia

Ever since my wheelchair
I’ve been eating these placebos
opalescent when I was a young man
and sometimes too large
for my gag reflex
now the nurse brings me tea
and exotic fruits
chamomile and papaya
all I can do is raise a slow thumb
and repeat the phrase “pretty good”
because pretty good is universal
and the nurse will never know
that inside this crippled head
is an architect waiting
to replace the severed sky.

You can hear audio of Seth reading this poem, and others, here.

The photo above shows a couple of Seth's tattoos, but this one, over on Tattoosday, is worth a closer look.

Seth Michael Berg earned his MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University in 2003 and has since been bouncing around the country teaching, tending bar, sculpting, writing, and occasionally snowshoeing. His poems and fiction can be found in Connecticut Review, Lake Effect, Word Riot, JMWW, 13th Warrior Review, Chiron Review, BlazeVOX, Pike Magazine, Disappearing City Literary Review, and Dark Sky Magazine, among others. Berg lives in Minneapolis with his photographer wife, Ashley, their supernatural son, Oak, and their twelve-year-old English Bulldog, Bob. When not working, Berg can most likely be found indulging his addiction to hot sauce or slowing down somewhere in a forest.

Thanks to Seth for his participation in the Tattooed Poets Project!