Eleonore Schönmaier

 

Fazil Say plays Fazil Say.

Poetry video for periodicities journal as part of the virtual reading series:  from my kitchen to yours.

“Let Us Be,” “Weightless,” and “What Gets Blown In.”

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(“Weightless” and “What Gets Blown In” are from Wavelengths of Your Song).

 

Let us be

our best selves

for each other

let us not let

the world ruin

us let us not

make each other

anxious let us

be us where we

share the best

and embrace the

worst but where

the best floats

to the surface

years ago I walked

the shore and found

the coast strewn

with books fallen

overboard their pages

open in the breeze

ragged and worn

and wet and I took

a book home and

I still enjoy the essence

of those pages

 

Eleonore Schönmaier

“Frankfurt, October” is the closing poem in my book Wavelengths of Your Song.  When writing the poem I could never have imagined that the book would be published in German translation as Wellenlängen deines Liedes in time for the Frankfurt Bookfair 2020. Canada will be the guest country. Joy!

The Frankfurter Buchmesse is the world’s largest fair for books and is held each year in October. “The Frankfurter Buchmesse has been organised…since 1949 when 205 German exhibitors met in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt…However, the history of Frankfurter Buchmesse goes back much further – to the 15th century. At that time Johannes Gutenberg invented book printing just a few kilometres from downtown Frankfurt.”

All photos by Eleonore Schönmaier.

 

 

 

I’m reading the proofs from Arc Poetry Magazine for my forthcoming poem “Compose.”  This is always one of my favourite moments as a writer when all the invisible work of being a poet starts to feel and become real. The poem is about two people working together composing music and writing poetry while sitting under the sun-shelter of a tree. These trees from a distance look scrawny but they provide an amazing small oasis in the form of a cool micro-climate during the heat of the day. Trees are so essential to our world in so many diverse and important ways.

 

“Entwined” and “Inner” have been accepted for publication in the anthology Wild Gods: The Ecstatic In Contemporary Poetry and Prose (New Rivers Press, Minnesota).

“Though ‘ecstatic’ is often used as a synonym for ‘joy,’ our application of the term embodies the entire emotional palette…Profound grief or outrage can access the ecstatic–as can experiences of extreme pleasure, pain, and wonder.

Poems are now forthcoming in four different anthologies in Canada and the United States.

 

 

“Tongues,” “So Much Remains Invisible,” and “Outstretched Arms” are featured in the current issue of Grain.

Other contributors include: Sheri Benning, Michelle Poirier Brown, Grant Buday, Kai Conradi, Krishan Coupland, Molly Cross-Blanchard, James Deahl, Antony Di Nardo, Patrick Friesen, Keegan Hawthorne, Robert Hilles, Judith Krause, Jessica Lampard, Norma West Linder, Conor Mc Donnell, Bruce McRae, Jan Morrison, Heather Parry, Sharon Pollock, John Reibetanz, Rebekah Rempel, Karen Rigby, Indra Singh, J. J. Steinfeld, Tom Wayman.

Cover Image is by Laura Dawe.

Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement this past year.

In 2019 “it didn’t happen here” won the National Broadsheet Contest from the League of Canadian Poets (judged by D.A. Lockhart), “Johnny on the Spot” received an honourable mention in the Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest from The Antigonish Review (judged by Sue Goyette),  “Weightless” was part of the Poetry in Motion program, two poems were shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (UK), two poems were featured as part of the League of Canadian Poets Poetry Pause, “Pink” was published in Prairie Fire in a special Work Matters issue, and  Dust Blown Side of the Journey  was reviewed in Canadian Literature. Poems were accepted for publication and are forthcoming in 2020 in Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain Magazine, Stand Magazine (UK), and The Antigonish Review. Poems are also forthcoming in three anthologies including Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds.

A German publisher wishes to publish Wavelengths of Your Song in translation in 2020, a new poetry manuscript is almost completed, and a Greek composer is weaving some of the new poems into a music-theatre work.

It was a great and joyous year.

All the best to all of you for 2020!

 

“Johnny on the Spot” received an honourable mention in the Great Blue Heron Poetry contest from The Antigonish Review (judged by Sue Goyette) and the poem will be published in a forthcoming issue. The poem weaves together baseball, musical and birding imagery.

“Lemon Tree” and “The Lining” have been accepted for publication by Stand Magazine (UK).

“Stand has been a fixture on the British and world literary scene since 1952, when the first issue appeared in London. It moved to Leeds in 1960, then to Newcastle, and it is now edited from the School of English at the University of Leeds in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University in the USA.”