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Second Nature : Poetry
by Eric Paul Shaffer
Publication Date: June 3, 2026 | LCCN: 2025951323
Paperback: $16.95 USD | ISBN 978-1-58775-060-1
E-Book: $9.99 USD | ISBN 978-1-58775-061-8
About the Book | From “Exfinition” | About the Author | Praise
About the Book
In these poems, Eric Paul Shaffer explores second nature, “a practice natural enough
to look natural.” Practice means acting within every moment and also means refining
the most elegant and economical way to act. Practice is both what we do and what
we learn to do well. These simultaneous senses reveal our second nature, whether
one reads bumper stickers, counts magpies, imagines a brother as a river, grieves a
lost mango tree, or squints the eye just enough to see clearly.
From “Exfinition”
Always outside of ourselves, the world looks just so
when we travel far enough. Inked and painted lines
are ours, drawn from us, not the sky,
not the earth, not even the whorls at the tip of a finger.
Look softly, and the world blurs. Edges vanish. I slacken
my sight and exfi ne the world, erase brinks,
mute borders, and then I see. In a fade of red, I see a world
in flux. In a mist of green, I see what I should never expect.
In a splash of white, I see an eternity
no one wants. I see all the same way snow smooths
the verge of a cliff and deroughs the peaks of mountains.
About the Author
Eric Paul Shaffer is the author of eleven books of poetry. More than 650 of his poems have been published in the USA, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, England, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Scotland, Singapore, and Wales. A few of his poems have been translated into Esperanto, Farsi, or Spanish. His work appears in twenty-seven anthologies, including Fire and Rain: EcoPoetry of California (Scarlet Tanager, 2018), The EcoPoetry Anthology (Trinity UP, 2013), Jack London Is Dead: Contemporary Euro-American Poetry in Hawai‘i (Tinfish, 2013), 100 Poets Against the War (Salt, 2003), and The Soul Unearthed (Tarcher/Putnam, 1996). He has also published a novel, two fiction chapbooks, and a volume of criticism.
Shaffer lives on O‘ahu and taught composition, literature, and creative writing at Honolulu Community College.
Praise
“Wait? What? A Second Nature?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“So this one time? At band camp? I tried Second Nature?”
—Michelle Flaherty
“Second Nature is the source of all true knowledge.”
—Leonardo da Vinci
“Pain is temporary, Second Nature is forever.”
—Leonardo DiCaprio
“Second Nature brings a smile to my lips.”
—Mona Lisa
“Second Nature. Hot.”
—Jean-Luc Picard
“Oh, man! Second Nature! Why didn’t I think of that?”
—Gary Snyder
“Second Nature is as familiar to me as the path around Walden Pond.”
—Henry David Thoreau
“I’m tidally locked in a face-to-face embrace with Second Nature.”
—The Moon
“I don’t always blurb poetry, but when I do, I prefer blurbing Second Nature.”
—The Most Interesting Man in the World