Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music

In a world as jaded and cynical as ours, do poetry and modern music still have the same potential to change minds and hearts as they once did? Or is that a passe thought, a last-ditch effort meant for intellectuals and flower children who haven’t yet broken under the wave of modern celebrity and society?

According to Michael Robbins, music and poetry are food for the mind and fuel for the soul, and in a series of essays exploring both popular and obscure names in both fields, he seeks to prove that both are indeed Equipment for Living.

What separates this book from other attempts to comment on the value of poetry and music is how effortlessly Robbins weaves obscure and erudite references into engaging, easily-parsed articles about modern day pop culture. I was gleefully engrossed in discussions of poets I’d never heard of because Robbins provided valuable, accessible insights into them. He speaks a common tongue of music and uses it to bridge any cultural gap between him and the reader.

It’s awesome stuff, an act of linguistic sleight of hand that cannot be overstated. In Robbins’s hands, Equipment for Living is precisely that.