Whenever I’m traveling, particularly in smaller towns, I always like to stop at the local bookstore, if they have one, and buy a book of poetry. I write in it where and when I got it.
This helps me remember where I’ve been, and my hope is one day it will provoke pleasant memories.
Buying books at those stores of course helps them survive.
And I buy poetry to help poetry survive.
The problem with poetry is that it serves no obvious functional purpose. You don’t learn anything, and there are no grand adventures. Usually there are few Big Thoughts, like you might get from a philosophical text.
No, poetry is a lazy Sunday with your slippers on, a good cup of coffee in a huge mug–a warm fire in the winter if you’re lucky, or possibly a pleasant spring day somewhere else–and most of us have forgotten this is one of our options. You don’t always have to be going somewhere. You don’t always need to be thrilled.
Sometimes the journey IS the destination.