This upcoming Pi Day (3.14), the L.E. Philips Memorial Library will host “Poetry & Pi(e): A Taste of Home.” The event will feature three acclaimed Wisconsin poets: Max Garland, former poet laureate of Wisconsin and author; Meghan Bennett, a local poet and educator; and Tiffany Rodriguez-Lee, current Director of Arts and Fellows for the Wisconsin Academy and former poet laureate of Wausau. Each poet will read their work, exploring what the concept of home means to them. And there will be pie. However, attendees must register in advance for this free event for pie calculation purposes. We don’t want to get our math wrong.
Co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, “Poetry & Pi(e)” is an annual event where science, art, and community connect. Rodriguez-Lee describes the event as “a celebration of spoken word, the warmth of shared stories, and the literal comfort of a slice of pie,” emphasizing that the Academy is “dedicated to being the 'common ground'” and “creating spaces where 'home' isn't just a physical address, but a shared responsibility of memory and belonging.”
This year’s Poetry & Pi(e) is part of the Wisconsin Academy’s larger series “Finding Home,” an exploration of the concept of home in celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary. Throughout the series’ various events, presenters explore what “home” means to them.
Poetry and Pi(e) is the poet’s time to answer this question.
Max Garland’s homemade chocolate pie recipe.
For Bennett, “home and poetry have always been synonymous,” she explains. Her poems continually explore if home is “a place, a person, or a feeling.” She adds: “What do you do when those places or persons or feelings change or move away?”
Through her writing, Rodriguez-Lee delves into the complicated in-between of defining one’s diasporic home. “As a Puerto Rican writer,” she remarks, “my work is a constant dialogue with a home the exists both in the blood and across an ocean”. She continues, “Poetry is the way I connect to my roots while living thousands of miles away from it, creating a space where my multiple homes can finally live together.”
But for some of these poets, what matters most is that their audience can find a part of themselves reflected within their work.
“Poetry & Pi(e): A Taste of Home” is an opportunity to engage and connect with our Wisconsin community, sharing the beauty of poetry and the simple pleasure of pie. Bennett is looking forward to French silk, peach pie is calling to Rodriguez-Lee, and Max Garland says chocolate pie is the only “legitimate pie” in his home of eastern Kentucky , though occasionally pecan pie got smuggled in.” (Check out the photo above for his mother’s original recipe!) As for me, I can’t decide!
Please register online prior to the event, then join us on March 14 at 4pm at L.E Philips Memorial Library to hear how these poets have translated home into poetry.