Eleonore Schönmaier

Emily Doolittle’s Conversation, a setting for soprano and ensemble of Eleonore Schönmaier’s haunting poem of the same name will be debuted on February 21 in Scotland as part of Music Planet’s programming with the St Andrews New Music Ensemble.  “Schönmaier’s poem explores what Doolittle describes as a ‘slightly uncanny sympathy between humans and grey seals’. Humans are musical creatures. Sounds are so important to how we communicate and how we create that we are naturally drawn to the sounds other animals make, especially when we perceive those sounds as music. Marine mammals are especially musical — underwater, visibility is poor, but sound travels far. Grey seals are particularly captivating because their voiceboxes are the closest to ours of any other animal.”  Emily Doolittle’s Conversation was commissioned by Bede Williams with funds from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

For a taster of what’s to come you can listen to another Doolittle work also based on a Schönmaier poem “Migration.”

Nine of my poems were selected for the Canadian National Poetry Registry (covering seven different constituencies). George Elliot Clark, Parliamentary Poet Laureate writes “My hope is that Canadians will look up a constituency and discover poets whose work will gain additional relevance via their verses about a place—or places—therein. I also hope to inform parliamentarians about how poets have viewed—or view—a riding and acquaint them with the poets who have lived in or visited their electoral districts.”

New Brunswick Southwest

Three poems set on Grand Manan:

“Libretto.”  Wavelengths of Your Song McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013

Saxifraga.”  Wavelengths of Your Song McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013

“Wild.” Wavelengths of Your Song McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013

Nova Scotia Halifax

Poem about the crash of Swissair Flight 111 and the effect of this on a Nova Scotia village

“What We Don’t Think of Packing.” Treading Fast Rivers Carleton University Press, 1999

Nova Scotia South Shore-St. Margarets

Poem set in Kejimkujik National Park 

“Journey.” Wavelengths of Your Song McGill-Queens University Press, 2013

Nova Scotia Dartmouth-Cole Harbour

“Medieval Thoughts.” Treading Fast Rivers Carleton University Press, 1999

Ontario Kenora

“Copper Thunderbird.” Treading Fast Rivers Carelton University Press, 1999

Northwest Territories

 “Paradise Evacuated.” Dust Blown Side of the Journey. McGill-Queens University Press, 2017

Vancouver Centre

“Vancouver.” Wavelengths of Your Song. McGill-Queen’s University Press 2013

“Our fate rests on human traits that haven’t yet been defined in scientific terms, such as common sense, kindness, rational thought, and creativity.” —Jaron Lanier (from Dawn of the New Everything:  A Journey through Virtual Reality)

“Making things visible, looking, feeling—’they are my form of resistance’.”  —Jorie Graham

“Inspired by beautiful poems from Eleonore Schönmaier (Canada), Giuseppe Ungaretti (Italy) and Gerrit Achterberg (The Netherlands), the musicians show their most sensitive and lyrical side.”  CD from One Room Ensemble.

“Eleonore has gone back out onto the lake, this time in her kayak. Truly no other friend of mine has canoeing more in her blood. She’s practised it since her childhood in Northern Ontario, and isn’t just a fair-weather paddler; she also likes the challenge and exhilaration of being on lakes during rains, mists and surging waves. No wonder images of water run through so much of her new poetry collection, which is also filled with music and musicians, so the title Wavelengths of Your Song fits perfectly. I’ve read some of the poems two or three times, but it just dawned on me, after canoeing with its author, that you could re-experience the book with the act of canoeing constantly in mind, and wonder how rhythms and lines might’ve been influenced by the dips, strokes, manouverings and driftings, all the movements of both energy and relaxation, in canoeing around a lake again and again.”

“Over two years, author and amateur naturalist Brian Bartlett sat down beside various bodies of water (bays, rivers, streams, lakes, waterfalls) to record his impressions, capturing both sensuous details of natural phenomena and reflections on his life and reading. Making a virtue of leisurely digression, Bartlett’s experiment in plein-air writing wanders beyond everyday personal journal-keeping into a meditation on the rich connections between the seemingly disparate experiences of our days, and on the enduring value of indulging our curiosity.”

“Brian Bartlett has published seven collections of poetry (including The Watchmakers Table and Wanting the Day: Selected Poems) and two books of prose (Ringing Here & There: A Nature Calendar and All Manner of Tackle: Living with Poetry). His writing has won numerous prizes, including the Atlantic Poetry Prize, The Malahat Reviews Long Poem Prize and the Acorn-Plantos Award for Peoples Poetry. Bartlett lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he teaches at Saint Marys University.”