Eleonore Schönmaier

“it didn’t happen here” is the winner of the League of Canadian Poets National Broadsheet contest, and was selected by judge D.A. Lockhart for its “strong images, and captivating lyric voice.” Lockhart also states, “It’s nature speaks to the sort of experiential empathy that would do much to our world.”  – D.A. Lockhart

In addition to being crafted into the above artisan broadsheet by Briar Craig, “it didn’t happen here” will be published in the League of Canadian Poets 2019 Poem in Your Pocket booklet on April 18, plus it will also be released as a postcard. You can also read the poem as featured on today’s Poetry Pause.

You can read an interview with Eleonore Schönmaier here.

Congratulations also to the runner-up Phillip Crymble for his poem “The Country East of Rossville, Indiana” (which you can read by scrolling down here).

Happy World Poetry Day!

“jobs that involve creativity, social interaction, and a human touch are hard to automate”

—Bruce Mau

Prairie Fire has accepted the poem “Pink” for its ‘Work Matters’ issue which will be published in April.

Eleonore Schönmaier’s books can be found in libraries globally including Poets House Library, New York, USA,  Helsinki University in Finland,  Bibliographie du Quebec, in Canada, Falvey Memorial Library  at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, USA,  and Biblioteca Madre Maria Teresa Guevara, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico among others.

“Eleonore Schönmaier’s Dust Blown Side of the Journey…takes an ecological approach with its rich selection of nature poetry, but her collection is also intimate and self-reflective…Her poems range in national settings, from the Canadian boreal forest, to the Balinese jungle, to the Greek islands, to the ‘remote mountains of Ecuador’…Capturing moments of human greed and human kindness, of striving for community, and of unapologetic joy, Schönmaier’s work is rejuvenating, and offers both a sense of peace and a time for introspection.” —Monica Sousa (read the full review in Canadian Literature).

 

 

Photo by Eleonore Schönmaier

Conversation (from Treading Fast Rivers) is today’s featured poem as part of the League of Canadian Poets Poetry Pause.  Migrations  (from Wavelengths of Your Song) was featured on November 16.  Both poems have been set to music by Emily Doolittle.

“With Poetry Pause, the League will circulate one poem a day, Monday-Friday, each month, all year. For your daily dose of poetics, you can subscribe to our Poetry Pause newsletter or find the poems on our website where they will be archived.”

Eleonore Schönmaier’s poem “Thanksgiving” is included in the recently released Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology edited by Priscila Uppal and Meaghan Strimas and published by Mansfield Press. The anthology is included in Chatelaine Magazine’s best books of 2018 list. The book also includes work by Teva Harrison, Molly Peacock, A.F. Moritz, Pamela Mordecai, Christian Bök, Catherine Graham, Canisia Lubrin, Bardia Sinaee, Ron Charach, Adam Sol, Emily Schultz, Jónína Kirton, and Zoe Whittall, and many others.

“Their work offers us new ways of seeing, understanding, and representing this ordinary and extraordinary experience. Current statistics predict 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. We need more art to understand the complexity and dimensions of what this means. This is an anthology for anyone who knows someone. This is an anthology for everyone.”

“Eleonore Schönmaier’s [third] poetry collection, Dust Blown Side of the Journey, is the work of a poet who has mastered her craft…featuring a beautifully elaborate intertwining of images…connections continue from poem to poem…akin to recurring melodies or riffs across distinct movements of a composition…poems both captivating and moving.” –Emma Skagan  (read the full article in The Malahat Review)

 

Photo by Eleonore Schönmaier

On September 5, 6, & 7 the St Andrews New Music Ensemble  performed three concerts  featuring Emily Doolittle’s  Conversation (based on a poem by Eleonore Schönmaier from Treading Fast Rivers).  

“Conversation is a 12-minute work for soprano and chamber ensemble, based on the sounds of grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) in haul-out. Schönmaier’s poem explores what Doolittle describes as a ‘slightly uncanny sympathy between humans and grey seals’.”

 

 

What We Don’t Think of Packing

 

but take along anyway:  the shoes on our feet,

the fifty-four bones in our hands, the memory of

the colour of the sheets on our beds.  We prepare

for flight as if we and the customs officers are the only

 

ones who will ever open our baggage.  Nightshirts close

to the suitcase’s zipper so when we arrive we can quickly

begin to restore what we thought we’d lost.  Certain kinds

of loss we bargain for in transit:  eight hours of sleep,

the memory of where we parked the car—

 

In Canada a man stands at the end

of his driveway talking to a neighbour:  I received

the call—search and rescue.  There was no screaming, no

arms hanging loose.  The helicopter shone light on the water

and we picked up what there was—

 

When I walk the beach with the kids

I know what I’m looking for.

I found a piece of plane and slipped it into my pocket.

Didn’t tell the kids—a scrap

the size of a two dollar coin.

 

Loss jangling, except it’s in a currency

no one else understands even if they were on the boat

when he cupped the child’s sneaker in his palm, insisted

the police promise to return it to the family—We never

 

anticipate losing the memories of what we have already lost—

 

 

From Treading Fast Rivers (McGill-Queen’s University Press)