Poetry Karma

Today I had the distinct pleasure of being interviewed by Rich Bradfield for his podcast The Boulderist. When the episode is published, I’ll be sure to share the link.

During our conversation, I told Rich about my travel habit of seeking out independent bookstores and buying a volume or two of poetry, ideally by local poets. Bookstores struggle, and the poetry section is invariably the least trafficked and smallest section in most stores. So as part of my tourism, I create poetry karma. I want bookstores to survive and poetry to be published, so I invest in my intention.

Along those same lines, I realized last fall that I’d assembled quite a collection of photographs from in and outside bookstores I’ve encountered on my travels. I thought it would be fun to share some of them here, perhaps to inspire fellow poetry tourists. The store pictured to the left is Oasis Books, discovered on my recent trip to historic Gloucester, Virginia. I bought used copies of W.H. Auden's The Voice of the Poet and Christianne Balk's Bindweed.

When you’re traveling this summer, seek out the booksellers, and make a deposit in your karmic poetry account.