Ari Cottingham

Texas-born Afro-Latine poet, editor, and service industry worker Ari Cottingham’s work explores questions of belonging across multiple intersectionalities and political contexts, and has appeared in or is forthcoming from BOOTH, SAND Literature & Art, Exist Otherwise, Scaffold Lit, and others. Notable performances include Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, 48Hours Neukölln, the Alley Theatre, the Museum of Old & New Art (MONA), and the Sydney Opera House, where they won the title of Australian National Poetry Slam Champion in 2016. They are a 2025 Brooklyn Poets Fellowship recipient, and they are currently based in Berlin, where they have co-organized and hosted Berlin Spoken Word, one of the longest-running all-language open mics in the city, for five years.