SOURCE: "Introduction" and "Dada Meets Zen: Tzara and Takahashi," in Buddhist Elements in Dada: A Comparison of Tristan Tzara, Takahashi Shinkichi, and Their Fellow Poets, New York University Press, 1977, pp. 1-13, 79-103.

In the following excerpt, Won highlights conceptual affinities between Zen Buddhism and the twentieth-century Dada movement, as illuminated by the poetry and thought of Takahashi Skinkichi and Tristan Tzara.

It seems important to note that in the past few years of the 1970s at least fifteen full-length literary books devoting either entirely or partly to Dada have been published in the United States—not to mention others elsewhere. Critical studies include The Poetry of Dada and Surrealism: Aragon, Breton, Tzara, Eluard, and Desnos by Mary Ann Caws (1970); Dada by Kenneth Coutts-Smith (1970); André Breton by Mary Ann Caws (1971); Dada: Paradox, Mystification, and Ambiguity in European Literature by Manual L. Grossman (1971); Tristan Tzara: Dada and Surrational Theorist by...