This chapter reflects a transitional period in the poet Thomas Meyer’s practice, which takes place—somewhat abruptly—in the early 1980s. Meyer was prolific throughout the 1970s and his works incurred a readership, marked by flagship books The Umbrella of Aesculapius and Staves Calends Legends, published by the Jargon Society in 1975 and 1979, respectively. However, he was bogged down by the criticism and/or indifference from the mentors he craved recognition from: Basil Bunting and Guy Davenport. A haunting by the failure to appease them results in a dramatic pause (nearly twenty years) in his work with the long poem, the form he planned on working in for the duration of his career. But the erasure of his practice as he foresaw it gives way to unexpected and rich projects in collaboration with friends: the painter Sandra Fisher and the composer James Sellars. While these partnerships result in disparate books, both reflect new methodology; for example, Meyer’s sonnet and tracing projects with Fisher, and his experimentation with machine language for The Turing Opera with Sellars. Meyer’s work during this period treads a line between absence (i.e., of what he was expected to publish) and presence (i.e., of what he published in lieu of expectations).