Of his book, Elementary,( Mellen Press) Dr. Chaffin has stated publicly that it took him twenty years to get it published because of the demands placed upon him as a doctor. Medicine might be his profession, but poetry is his passion. He writes poetry, he does readings, and he writes about poetry.
His essay, "On Modulation", often finds its way into dialog as well as poetry critiques. Chaffin sees a lot of poetry, and his essay cites a common pitfall, "...the one pervasive error among many otherwise promising poets. It is the error of over-decoration, as if the more 'fresh' words one stuffs in a line, the better." Poet Teresa White features this essay at her site, In What Furnace?. I point poets to the essay frequently, as it is an excellent resource for anyone beginning to write seriously. He also writes a column for the magazine Savoy, and this publication is serializing his book-length collection of short stories, The Eric Chronicles. Chaffin also belongs to the Zeugma online poetry workshop.
Recently Dr. Chaffin read with poet Shann Palmer in Richmond, Virginia, at her invitation. Shann characterizes him as "wise, witty, an excellent houseguest." Shann says that the readings were very successful and well received.
Wander around the Net and read Chaffin's poetry and prose; an image emerges of a very forward thinking man whose fancy leans to chivalry and old world ideals. He often signs correspondence by replacing the dogmatic "sincerely" with "Thine in Truth and Art." He is well read to the point of being intimidating, and writes fluently about a number of different subjects. You cannot pigeonhole his work, and it is impossible to guess what he'll come up with next. Over a few days, I read poems that dealt with art, both modern and past, as well as the Lincoln Memorial. At Melic, I discovered a delightfully fanciful poem titled, "At the Workshop," and the opening lines are among my favorites in contemporary poetry.
"Poetry must be true," the teacher said,
and so I had to resurrect the dead.
Someone I killed to make a stanza better
I must revive, or violate the letter.
The poem continues with imaginary dialog between Coleridge, Keats, Spenser, Moliere and a host of others until the final lines:
so I made a poem out of things that I'd collected
and glued them to a board, so when directed
