The Ivy is thrilled to celebrate Dean Bartoli Smith's poetry collection, Baltimore Sons, with an outdoor concert on our back patio! Dean will be joined by local musician Steve Martel.

Click here to register for the free event!

Click here to purchase Baltimore Sons!

Frank, unsparing, often violent and disturbing, the poems in Baltimore Sons speak in the voice of a young man trying to navigate the city he loves as he lives in the long shadow of its decline with a sense of grace and hope. With the city of Baltimore as his backdrop, accomplished poet, author, and editor Dean Bartoli Smith offers a wrenching examination of our troubled attachments to place and the deepest wounds of the American psyche.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Dean Bartoli Smith is a published poet, author, and journalist. His recent collection of poems, Baltimore Sons (Stillhouse Press, 2021) offers a wrenching examination of our troubled attachments to place and the deepest wounds of the American psyche. His poetry has appeared in Smartish Pace, Poetry East, Open City, Beltway, Gulf Stream, and Upstreet, among others. His first book of poems, American Boy (Washington Writers Publishing House, 2000) won the 2000 Washington Writer's Prize and was awarded the Maryland Prize for Literature in 2001. He is also the author of Never Easy, Never Pretty: A Fan, A City, A Championship Season (Temple University Press, 2013).  Smith received an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University in 1989. He is an adjunct professor of publishing in the Master of Professional Studies program at George Washington University and the director of Duke University Press. One of his all-time favorite moments was doing a public talk with John Cleese. 

Steve Martel wrote, recorded, and produced over 7 studio albums; 100s of songs written; 20 albums of youth music recorded; wrote and produced song for 'Mary Jane' for Jessica Blau's novel of the same name. Accomplished guitarist who plays in a number of Baltimore bands including Deep Blue Railroad and The Giggmohrs. He is a teacher at the McDonogh School, and the founder and director of Rock Shop, a dynamic 20 year songwriting and performance camp for youth and adults.

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