Poetry Night

When: February 18, 2026 - Doors at 19:30

Join us for a night of poetry. ivallan’s welcomes Berlin Spoken Word co-hosts Rhys Anderson and Ari Cottingham, plus poets Constantine and Rachel Berryman.

Bios

Ari Cottingham is a poet/gastronomy worker whose writing on belonging across multiple intersectionalities and political contexts has appeared in SAND Journal, BOOTH, and elsewhere. They have performed at MONA, the Alley Theatre, Glastonbury, and the Sydney Opera House, and they are a 2025 Brooklyn Poets Fellowship recipient. They pray for good tips on long shifts in Berlin, where they have co-organized and hosted Berlin Spoken Word, the city’s longest-running all-language open mic, for five years.

In 2025, Rhys Anderson was published for the first time, with work featured in Beyond Queer Words, Festival For Poetry and Culture Shock Magazine. Nicotine Wasp is the first published collection of work by Rhys, exploring the bones that are haunting your body, a darkening sky, and the feeling of something oozing from beneath a neighbour’s door. Like Berlin, Rhys is poetry rich, a little bit broken and very much alive.

Rachel Berryman is an American-German data strategist and writer based in Berlin. Rachel’s written work explores ethical and philosophical themes, exposing hypocrisies and imagining what a modern moral life could look like. Moralistin, Rachel’s debut full-length collection, is out in March from FLORETS.