Celebrating Annie Marhefka's BALTIMORE at the Concrete Poetry 2 Sculpture

You might have noticed the exciting Concrete Poetry 2 Sculpture in the gardens behind the Ivy-- that elegant, interactive concrete alphabet where phrases inspiring and joyful live and change.

The sculpture is the work of Baltimore artist Julia Kim Smith, and now, we bring the sculpture to life with a reading in celebration of National Poetry Month.

This very special, very Baltimore reading will feature Annie Marhefka and her new chapbook, which highlights beloved Baltimore places of all kinds through a poetic lens. Beloved poet Steven Leyva will join Annie Marhefka for this reading.

We'll gather out in the Ivy gardens to enjoy poetry and refreshments. Books will be available for sale at the event.

Annie Marhefka is a writer in Baltimore, Maryland; she is the recipient of the 2024 Eunice Williams Nonfiction Prize, has been featured on The Slowdown Show, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Annie is the Executive Director at Yellow Arrow Publishing, a Baltimore-based nonprofit empowering women-identifying writers. Annie has received support from the Maryland State Arts Council, Gullkistan Center for the Arts, Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, and Tin House. She has a BA in creative writing from Washington College and an MBA, and is an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore where she was Co-Managing Editor of Welter. Her collection, Strangers We Know By Heart, is available from Garden Party Collective, and her new collection, Baltimore, is forthcoming from the Writer in Sites series. When Annie is not writing, she is usually trying to find her way back to the water. Follow Annie on Instagram @anniemarhefka and at anniemarhefka.com.

Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared in Smartish Pace, Scalawag, Poetry, Nashville Review, jubilat, The Hopkins Review, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, was published by Blair Publishing in Spring 2025. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an associate professor, and co-director of the Klein Family Center of Communications Design.

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