Ghetto Koans: A Personal Archive

I hesitate to call a book beautiful in these difficult times because beauty so often means the surrender of our consciousness, our need to confront the fuckery of the moment and the life we endure. James Cagney’s Ghetto Koans is perhaps the exception. It confronts the plight of human existence with unparalleled lyric intensity making for a reading experience like no other. Dare I say it? Fuck yeah I’ll say it. This is a beautiful work of art!

—Truong Tran