Poetry @ the Public

with Eric Paul Shaffer

Eric Paul Shaffer will be making his Faulkner County Library debut all the way from Hawaii!

Join us for an afternoon of light refreshments, community, and poetry! Doors will open at 2:00 pm and guests are invited to enjoy light refreshments and a meet-and-greet with the authors. Readings will start at 2:30 pm.

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This event is free and open to the public.

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About Eric:

A native of Washington, D.C., Eric Paul Shaffer earned a PhD in American Literature from the University of California-Davis. The subject of his doctoral dissertation was the mid-20th-Century American poet Lew Welch. Poet Gary Snyder was a member of his dissertation committee.

Eric is the author of nine poetry books, including his most recent collection, Free Speech, a volume of two poem sequences scheduled for publication by Coyote Arts Press in March of 2025. Over 650 of his poems have appeared in literary journals in the USA, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Nicaragua, India, Iran, Scotland, Singapore, and Wales. He published his first novel, Burn & Learn, in 2009.

In 2002, Eric received the Elliot Cades Award, Hawaii’s most prestigious literary prize. In addition, he won the Ka Palapala Po‘okela Book Award in 2006 and 2019 and the James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry in 2009.

After a stint living and teaching on the Japanese island of Okinawa, Eric and his wife Veronica moved to the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he taught composition, literature, and creative writing for seventeen years at Honolulu Community College until his retirement at the end of the 2023-2024 academic year.

A contributor to SLANT since 2006, Eric is now a member of the SLANT editorial board.

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