Written in his characteristic “mesostics” (linked lines of prose poetry), Composition in Retrospect is a statement of methodology in which John Cage examines the central issues of his work: indeterminacy, nonunderstanding, inconsistency, imitation, variable structure, contingency. Also included in this volume (as Cage requested) is Themes and Variations, a 1982 piece inspired by friends and heroes such as Jasper Johns, Buckminster Fuller, Marcel Duchamp, and Erik Satie.