This volume is the first collection of Rothenberg's poetic writings and includes ideas and excerpts from his books and essays. Rothenberg indicates that Abulalfia (1240-c.1291) himself writes of the abstracting/spiritualizing process which he then employs & by which the world is apprehended as language/sound: "Know that the method of tseruf (the combination of letters) can be compared to music; for the ear hears sounds from various combinations,in accordance with the character of the melodu & the instrument. In touch with yogic currents fgrom the East, Abulafia's intention was mantric, but his practice of a systemic & concrete poetry also closely resembles the 20th century Lettrisme of Isidore Isou, the asymmetries & nuclei of Jackson Mac Low & the blues Kabbalah improvisions of Jack Hirschman, all of whom he may have influenced. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.