Eric Paul Shaffer

Eric Paul Shaffer's eighth book of poetry, Green Leaves: Selected & New Poems, was published by Coyote Arts in 2023. He is author of seven previous books of poetry, including Even Further West (2018), A Million-Dollar Bill (2016); Lāhaina Noon (2005); Living at the Monastery, Working in the Kitchen (2001); Portable Planet (2000); RattleSnake Rider (1990); and Kindling: Poems from Two Poets (1988; with James Taylor III). More than 650 of his poems appear in more than 300 local, national, and international reviews and in anthologies, such as The EcoPoetry Anthology; Jack London Is Dead: Contemporary Euro-American Poetry in Hawai‘i; 100 Poets Against the War; and The Soul Unearthed. Shaffer received the 2002 Elliot Cades Award for Literature, a 2006 Ka Palapala Po‘okela Book Award for Lāhaina Noon, and a 2019 Ka Palapala Po‘okela Book Award for Even Further West. He won a 2006 Fellowship to the Summer Fishtrap Writers Workshop in Oregon and the 2009 James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry. In 2013, he was keynote speaker at the 16th Annual Ko‘olau Writing Workshops at Hawai‘i Pacific University, and is a regular workshop presenter at the annual event. In 2015, he was a visiting poet at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference. Burn & Learn, his first novel, was published in 2009. He teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at Honolulu Community College.