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You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

I'm Michael Silverblad, and today I'm pleased to have as my guest, Hajin.

He is the author most recently of a book of short stories published by Pantheon called

The Bridegroom, but the author, as is well known, of waiting, a work that

won the National Book Award for Fiction when it was published, and two other books of short

stories, Ocean of Words and Under the Red Flag, another novel called in the Pond.

All of these are available from vintage,

and two books of poetry between silences and facing shadows. Now, many people first discovered

Hajin's work when waiting won the award. I was among them, but I went and read your poetry,

and I wondered, I haven't seen poetry of yours recently.

Have you switched?

Have you gone from poetry entirely to prose? No. I have been

teaching poetry all the time. And in fact, I have a book of poems, wreckage coming out this winter.

So I've been writing poetry. It's hard, but I have to try. Well, it's very interesting because,

you know, now even in the poetic craft of the short story,

it's fairly rare that writers attempt both.

In fact, I think there are more poets writing short stories than short story writers writing poems.

...