Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music

Synopsis

How Can Art Help Us Make Sense--or Nonsense--of The World? If Wrong Life Cannot Be Lived Rightly, As Theodor Adorno Had It, What Weapons And Strategies For Living Wrongly Can Art Provide? With The Same Intelligence That Animates His Poetry, Michael Robbins Addresses This Weighty Question While Contemplating The Idea Of How Strange It Is That We Need Art At All. Ranging From Prince To Def Leppard, Lucille Clifton To Frederick Seidel, Robbins's Mastery Of Poetry And Popular Music Shines In Equipment For Living. He Has A Singular Ability To Illustrate Points With Seemingly Disparate Examples (friedrich Kittler And Taylor Swift, To W.b. Yeats And Anna Kendrick's Cups). Robbins Weaves A Discussion On Poet Juliana Spahr With The Different Subsets Of Scandinavian Black Metal, Illuminating Subjects In Ways That Few Scholars Can Achieve. Equipment For Living Is Also A Wonderful Guide To Essential Poetry And Popular Music--jacket Flap. Equipment For Living -- Wisconsin Chair -- Holes -- Journey Force -- The Child That Sucketh Long -- Destroy Your Safe And Happy Lives -- Rhyme Is A Drug -- How To Write A Charles Simic Poem -- Kill Rock Stars' Memoirs -- Dark, Dark, Dark -- No Taste Of My Own -- Real God, Roll -- Red -- Make The Machine Sing -- Hooked Up -- Visible Republic -- Are You Smeared With The Juice Of Cherries? -- Frederick Seidel's Bad Taste -- Equipment For Sinking -- Playlist. Michael Robbins. Essays. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 201-207).