Music at the Heart of Thinking

Fred Wah

"The music of thinking. The thinking of music. Music at the Heart of Thinking is a lifelong poem project that responds to readings in contemporary writing, art, and ideas from over the past forty years. From jazz, it takes the unpredictable ad lib driving itself from itself. From a drunken Shaolin monk, the poem as imbal- anced tai chi. From Keats's negative capability, the half-closed eye, the estrange- ment of language. Continuing the work of two now-out-of-print publications, Music at the Heart of Thinking (1987) and Alley, Alley Home Free (1990), this ex- panded and ongoing Music at the Heart of Thinking relocates critical language and thinking to the poetic bavardage at the heart of such endeavours. Within this poetry of estrangement lie possible coherences for some sense of writing as a notation for thinking as feeling."--