M.L. Liebler is a Detroit poet, university professor, and arts activist. His memoir is structured as an album, a soundtrack of life where every chapter bears the name of an artist who influenced him in some way. There is a chapter on Eminem.
Big names
The article about the book provides insight into how it works and gives some examples. For instance, in the “Elvis” chapter, Liebler talks about his grandmother and her love for Elvis. Not all connections in this book are strictly spiritual. The Detroit poet has made multiple connections through his life, including, for instance, psychedelic beatnik icon Timothy Leary.
However, there are no hints at what Liebler is talking about in the chapter dedicated to Eminem. Liebler is a poet who does not sit quietly in a library but goes outside into the world to perform his poetry and run multiple creative projects. So, he might already have crossed paths with Eminem, and he might share more than just academic appreciation for Em’s work.
Teaching material
In fact, Liebler has already shown that the university respects Marshall’s poetry. He included Em’s work in a book “Respect: The Poetry of Detroit Music”, which came out in 2019 through Michigan State University Press. Then, even before that, Liebler released the award-winning 2017 anthology “Heaven Was Detroit: From Jazz to Hip-Hop and Beyond” through Wayne State University Press, which also featured Eminem.
So, when somebody mentions that students should study Eminem’s bars in schools, they already do.
Shared belief
This book covers 72 years of Liebler’s journey, full of music and activism. He has a secret to living the life the way he did, and he generously shares it with the students:
“I tell my students … when you’re a writer, if someone asks you to do something, anywhere in the world, always say yes”. It echoes familiar Eminem lines from “Lose Yourself”, if not literally then certainly in spirit. Marshall is not a professor. Moreover, he avoids being didactic in his bars. Actually, he prefers the Socratic method, a way of teaching philosophy through asking questions.
If you had one shot or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
At the end of the day, the poet laureate and rapper from Detroit talk about the same hunger and curiosity that push the world forward.