Interview: Book is Like a Quick Return to Japan, Poet Says: Eric Paul Shaffer's comments in American Fuji by Sara Backer (The Hololulu Advertiser, 16 June 2002)

Press Release: National Poetry Month 2002: April is the Busiest Month for LDP Poet, Eric Paul Shaffer (25 April 2002)

Press Release: Literature of the Leaping Dog (5 September 2000)

Sample Poem  ~  Reviews  ~  Other Titles  ~  Links

Contains “A Portable Planet,”
winner of the Potent Prose Ax Prize for Poetry
Nominee for the Pushcart Prize

Leaping Dog Press is proud to announce the first volume in its series of contemporary literature: Portable Planet: Poems by Eric Paul Shaffer, a collection of the poetry of eight years that Shaffer and his wife Veronica lived in Okinawa, Japan, while he taught as an Assistant Professor at the University of the Ryukyus.

The poems in Portable Planet touch on Shaffer’s experiences on, around, and within the Pacific Rim, from California to Japan to Indonesia. The heart of the book is “The Western Room,” a poem that presents glimpses of Okinawa by means of a tour of Shuri Castle, the newly-restored royal residence of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Portable Planet is essentially a book of poems that celebrate and examine the status of humans as “inside-outsiders,” not only in other countries and cultures, but also on the planet and even within our own families.

Read a sample poem: “Far from the House, I Climb”
(In Adobe Acrobat PDF format, download the free Acrobat Reader.)

of Eric Paul Shaffer’s Portable Planet:

• “Portable Planet is a marvelous book. I’ve been following Shaffer’s work for years and he is on a definitive upward spiral.”

— Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall, Dalva,
The Road Home and The Shape of the Journey:
New and Selected Poems

• “Portable Planet — reminds me of what poetry is about — clear melody with an easy pleasing pace — plain speech — elegant diction — pictorial — makes each place . . . come alive — Okinawa, Japan, Bali, delta country of California — full of the largely arcane detail that makes up most of Earth life — what do we write for but to say I was here at this time at this place & this is how it struck me — a beautiful book —”

— Albert Saijo, co-author of Trip Trap: Haiku on the Road (with Jack Kerouac and Lew Welch)

• “Eric Paul Shaffer is my favorite poet — more alive than any other so-called living poet. Portable Planet is a masterpiece.”

  — Sara Backer, author of American Fuji

• “Graced by the best from the past, the poet wanders. His poems will take you to places you need to visit.”

  — Steve Sanfield, author of Wandering, A New Way, He Smiled to Himself, and A Fall from Grace

• “Eric Paul Shaffer’s Portable Planet demonstrates a nomad’s sense of place around the Pacific Rim.”

  — Magda Cregg, editor of Hey Lew

• “Eric Paul Shaffer’s poems carry us ever inward and out, where particular stones sprout wings, where solid ground is shaken by the nimble fingers of small gods, and the normal everyday ways of life stay blessedly themselves. These poems are portable, they’re the exact same size as the hip pocket of your mind.”

  — John Kain, author of Cheater’s Paradise

• “Complex, paradoxical, and intriguing, this is poetry that makes one quite happy that some writers can’t keep their mouths shut.”

  — Cheri Crenshaw, Fearless Reviews

• “Eric Paul Shaffer is the best poet writing today. Portable Planet liberates American poetry from the stuffiness of the Academy and the silliness of the Slam. Here is a book whistling with fresh air, open vistas, and good humor. Portable Planet should be made into our next National Park, but hurry and get your copy, before the next administration sells it off! If Walt Whitman had looked under his own boot soles, he would have found Eric Paul Shaffer — and Shaffer would have been giving old Walt a hot foot. This book burns!”

  — John P. O’Grady, author of Grave Goods: Essays of a Peculiar Nature (University of Utah Press, May 2001)

• Poet Explores Meaning of a “Portable Planet”

— Elisabeth Sherwin, The Davis Enterprise

• Island Books: Poetic words to ponder

— Ann M. Sato, Honolulu Advertiser

Other Titles . . .

by Eric Paul Shaffer:

• How I Read Gertrude Stein by Lew Welch, edited by Eric Paul Shaffer (Grey Fox, 1995)
• The Soul Unearthed: Celebrating Wildness and Personal Renewal Through Nature, edited by Cass Adams (J. P. Tarcher, 1996)
• Living at the Monastery, Working in the Kitchen (Leaping Dog Press, 2001)

Eric Paul Shaffer Links . . .

• Reckless Poetry, Eric’s home page