Contents -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION: WRITING IMPROVISATION INTO MODERNISM -- Modernisms -- Improvisations -- Afrological and Eurological Improvisations -- Literary Improvisation, Jazz, and Modernism -- Pragmatist Improvisations -- Chapter Outline -- CHAPTER 1 EZRA POUND: MUSIC, HISTORY, TIME -- Pound's Songs -- Pound's Life in/and Music -- Antheil, Pound, and the African (American) Paideuma -- CHAPTER 2 LANGSTON HUGHES: "HOW TO TAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE AND MAKE IT DANCE" -- Hughes and Jazz Consciousness -- Blues Imagism and Bluesnik Poetics -- The Abstract Truth -- CHAPTER 3 LISTENING TO GERTRUDE STEIN'S SAXOPHONE -- Primitivism, Improvisation, Language -- The Pragmatics of Improvisation -- Melanctha and the Limits of Language -- Eighty-Eight Tender Buttons: The Sound of Stein's Objects -- When the Saints Go Marching In -- Epilogue: Stein on the Mic -- CHAPTER 4 BANJOS, BLACKBIRDS, AND BLUE GUITARS: THE SOUNDWORLD OF WALLACE STEVENS -- Music, Feeling, Sound: Listening to Stevens -- Improvising Wallace Stevens -- CONCLUSION -- Further Questions, Other Improvisations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.