Music has had a presence in the poetry of Jos? Hierro from his first collection, Tierra sin nosotros, to his most recent Cuaderno de Nueva York. For the poet and scholars, music plays a pivotal role in the expression of emotion, an artistic goal that is central to the poet's concept of what poetry is and what it should do. While music is implicated in the expression of emotion, to date, there have been no studies that explain this relationship. The Symbolists' notion of music's inherent ambiguity as a model for poetic language, and Nieztsche's concept of musical dissonance help to contextualize Hierro's use of music as a metaphor and aesthetic model. As a metaphor signifying unlimited imaginative potential, music becomes for the poet a means for suggesting unnamed emotions, for conveying temporal existence, and ultimately, for negotiating the sense of Otherness that one may feel in foreign cultures. Jos? Hierro's literary career has spanned over half a century, and his work has brought him accolades from nearly every organization in Spain that recognizes literary achievement.l The publication of Cuaderno de Nueva York (1998), the poet's ninth collection of verse, and his recent anthology, M?sica (1999), underscore the notable presence of music in Hierro's writing. M?sica brings together for the first time in one volume all of his poems dealing with this subject from six collections beginning with his first, Tierra sin nosotros (1946), to the latest Cuaderno de Nueva York. Nineteen poems for the first edition were selected by anthologist Manolo Romero whose criterion was simply that each be concerned with music and musicians. Twelve of the nineteen poems were initially published in Hierro's latest collections, Agenda (1991) and Cuaderno de Nueva York, while the remaining poems were taken from four earlier books, Tierra sin nosotros (1946), Quinta del 42 (1953), Cuanto s? de m? (1958)2 and the Libro