Submitted by: Michael Blanchard, mblanchard@uca.edu on 03/03/2024
The UCA School of Language & Literature and SLANT, the School’s international journal of contemporary poetry, will host a campus visit by Hawaii poet Eric Paul Shaffer on March 12-13. The highlight of Shaffer’s visit will be a reading free of charge and open to the public at 7 p.m., March 12, in the McCastlain Art Lecture Hall. In addition, he will be the guest lecturer for two poetry classes on the morning of March 13.
A contributor to SLANT since 2006, Shaffer is the author of eight poetry books, including his most recent collection, Green Leaves: Selected and New Poems, published by Coyote Arts Press in 2023. Over 600 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, Shaffer 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, Shaffer moved to the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he now teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at Honolulu Community College.
For more information on Shaffer’s campus visit, contact Slant editor Michael Blanchard, adjunct professor of English and editor of Slant, at mblanchard@uca.edu.