What is Poetry For?

When I think about what I use poetry for, the only honest answer I can come up with is that I use it to preserve things. I use it to preserve the things that matter to me. Like any preserver (taxidermist, pickler) I have to be careful about the methods I use. Preserving things can be a challenge, but the challenge is not the point - it is something incidental. The final product may look a little odd and bear only a passing resemblance to the raw materials that went into it, but that's not the point. What's important is the special alchemy between what is being preserved and the method of preservation.