''Empty Words: Writings '73–'78'' is a book by American

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

composer

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

(1912–1992), first published in 1979 by

Wesleyan University Press Wesleyan University Press is a university press that is part of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The press is currently directed by Suzanna Tamminen, a published poet and essayist. History and overview Founded (in its present for ...

* "Foreword" (1978) * "Preface to ''Lecture on the Weather''" (1979) * "How the Piano Came to be Prepared" (1973) * "Empty Words" (1974–75) * "Where Are We Eating? and What Are We Eating? (38 Variations on a Theme by

Alison Knowles Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge diffe ...

)" (1975) * "Series re

Morris Graves Morris Graves (August 28, 1910 – May 5, 2001) was an American painter. He was one of the earliest Modern artists from the Pacific Northwest to achieve national and international acclaim. His style, referred to by some reviewers as Mysticism, ...

" (1974) * "Sixty-One Mesostics Re and Not Re

Norman O. Brown Norman Oliver Brown (September 25, 1913 – October 2, 2002) was an American scholar, writer, and social philosopher. Beginning as a classical scholar, his later work branched into wide-ranging, erudite, and intellectually sophisticated cons ...

" (1979) * "Writing for the Second Time through

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction whi ...

" (1978) * "The Future of Music" (1974) Also included are the following

mesostic A mesostic is a poem or other text arranged so that a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text. It is similar to an acrostic, but with the vertical phrase intersecting somewhere in the midst of the line, as opposed to the beginning o ...

s: * "Many Happy Returns" (1979) * "A Long Letter" (1977) * "Song" (1979) * "For S. Fort, Dancer" (1979) * "For William Mc N. Who studied with

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

" (1979) * " Wright's Oberlin House Restored by E. Johnson" (1979) * "'I'm the happiest person I know' (S.W.)" (1975)

Contents

See also