Well it’s mid July, and that usually means it’s time for us gather as many of you as we can and as many pies as we can into the big barn on Sweetland Farm to share an afternoon of poetry and pie.

Since we are thwarted this year by events beyond our control, we’re instead offering this little slice of sweetness, assembled from the words and kindness of some of our favorite people. (Thank you Taylor, GennaRose, Laura Jean, Didi, and Beth!)

If you like pie, we’ll raise a slice in your honor this weekend. And if you don’t—we hear rumors that some otherwise excellent humans mysteriously prefer cake—we love you anyway.

Until next summer,
—Rebecca and Shari

p.s. This weekend also marks the launch of our newest Little Dipper chapbook: Mary Kane’s On Tuesday, Elizabeth. Hop over to the Little Dipper page to download your copy. It’ll keep you excellent company while you wait for your pie to cool.

Vermont On Its Own

For the holidays, everyone's road would receive new culverts
and everyone's driveway would receive gravel and a grating
because our government would understand that roads and rivers
are the lines that man and nature sketch on these hillsides
and the water that rushes alongside us
is the water that fills our pipes
and the water from the sky
is the beverage of the plants
grown with grim reverence for three short months
into the food that fills our pantries and our cellars and our bellies

Beyond no billboards there'd be no roadsigns at all
and the highways that bisected pastures would be returned to pastures
and if anyone tried to visit us they'd become lost at once
with no cell service or internet service or gasoline service
because all our services would be password-protected
passed from mouth to mouth by neighbors
all necessary information kept to ourselves unless absolutely necessary

And our chest freezers would be our banks
where all currency would be kept and kept cold
for all goods could be purchased with goods
hay for hamburg, gas for green beans, coffee beans for Jacob's cattle beans
a half-day's work at my farm for a half-day's work at yours
and all the donut grease would be collected for biodiesel
and the fields of corn would butt up against the fields of hemp

And no one would agree on how to fund the cemeteries
and no one would agree on how to fund the schools
and no one would agree on what to name the new store
and everyone would agree to table the issues again until next year
when we'd hopefully finally dear god fingers crossed
get the right amount of rain and the right amount of sun
and the right about of hay and the right amount of corn
to feed all the animals and all the people each day of the year

and it would be on Town Meeting Day of the perfect year
that a brawl would break out over pies
distracting everyone from the absolute lack
of anything to complain about
and as the strawberry rhubarb splattered on the town mural
and the blueberry lemon was smeared into the hair of the town clerk
the newest residents of the town
the tiny babies in their neighbor-knitted hats
would look at each other and smile in unison
before breaking out into a chorus of screams
that could be heard far past the borders
of the nation of Vermont

—Taylor Mardis Katz

A Apple Pie, by Kate Greenaway

From Project Gutenberg: “Kate Greenaway used an early version of the rhyme to illustrate A APPLE PIE, which was first published in 1886 and it will be noticed that there is no rhyme for the letter I….The rhyme of A APPLE PIE is very ancient and reference is made to it as early as 1671 in one of the writings of John Eachard.”

Women Who Don’t Use Recipes

They observe, then use their hands.
Feel their way. Pinch of salt, they say.
The consistency of playdough.
Not too hard, not too soft.

My story is baked in strawberry pie.
Apple in the fall, and the women
who made it. It won’t be written
down, not correctly. It can’t be.

I keep asking questions. The kitchen
explodes. Flour on the black granite,
green stems and berry juice. Spatulas.
Wooden spoons. Peelings fill metal bowls.

My sons may ask me one day,
while the scent still hangs in the air.
I’ll remove a hot heaven and say,
This is all I have to give you.

—Laura Jean Binkley

"...the fly, arrested mid-plunge
above the strawberry pie,
fulfills its abiding mission
and dives into the sweet, red glaze."

—Lisel Mueller, from “Immortality” (contributed by Didi Jackson)

“I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paper"

—Grace Paley, from “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative”

My July pie of choice is usually blueberry, in honor of the season and of my mother, whose birthday was in July and who always preferred a blueberry pie to any cake. My favorite blueberry pie to make is actually a galette, which is quick to make and nicely sized for devouring by three people in one evening (with maybe one slice left for breakfast in the morning). This recipe by Dorie Greenspan appears in the excellent Baking With Julia cookbook. The page in my copy is beautifully gritty with cornmeal and stained by blueberries.

(contributed by Rebecca Siegel)

On the pie table at Poetry & Pie each summer, you will always find a Shaker Lemon Pie. It’s turned into a tradition. I like the fact that 2 sour lemons can be transformed into a delicious pie. Some recipes call for Meyer Lemons, but they are hard to locate in the summer, so I usually just use the regular kind. In case your curiosity gets the best of you, you, too, can make this treat. We’re fond of Smitten Kitchen’s recipe. (contributed by Shari Altman)

“People I had never seen before flocked in, their faces showing a longing you never saw for cake. People's eyes lit up for a cupcake, cake seemed to signal celebration. But their eyes got filmy, watery, misty when we handed them a slice of pie. Pie was memory. Nostalgia. Pie made people recall simpler, maybe happier times.”

―Judith Fertig, from The Memory of Lemon

•

“The sandy beach reminded Harold of picnics. And the thought of picnics made him hungry. So he laid out a nice simple picnic lunch.

There was nothing but pie. But there were all nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best.

When Harold finished his picnic there was quite a lot left. He hated to see so much delicious pie go to waste.

So Harold left a very hungry moose and a deserving porcupine to finish it up.”

―Crockett Johnson, from Harold and the Purple Crayon 

•

“We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”

―David Mamet, from Boston Marriage

(contributed by EM Reynolds)

In 1999, the Vermont State Legislature voted on the state fruit—the apple. And if you guessed that the state pie would naturally be apple pie, you’d be correct! But did you know that there is a section two of this act that specifically addresses serving the pie. It is as follows: