Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021)
“These are understated poems grounded in imagism, snapshots of a life, where the poet speaks quietly to her reader with precision and insight.” Armand Garnet Ruffo, author of Treaty#
“Spanning continents and decades, the poems in Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete bear witness to beauty, pain, and injustice alike. Meditative and musical, Schönmaier’s verse renders the world in vivid, attentive language.” Annick MacAskill, author of Murmurations
“Eleonore Schönmaier’s poems are profoundly lyrical. Their words come from a brave and tender witness, and in their white spaces is the sound of an orchestra playing by the sea.” Sadiqa de Meijer, author of The Outer Wards
Wellenlängen deines Liedes (parasitenpresse, 2020)
“Wellenlängen deines Liedes ist ein großartiges Buch einer ebensolchen Autorin, die es kennenzulernen gilt.” —Matthias Ehlers Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Dust Blown Side of the Journey (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017)
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 The Malahat Review, Autumn 2018
Schönmaier is a perfect mix of Nelson Ball’s wonder and brevity along with the breadth and wisdom, experience and vision of a Lorna Crozier or a Sharon Olds. That is some fine company and Schönmaier is right at home…monstrously good…Reading Dust Blown Side of the Journey is like that first long cool and quenching gulp of fresh spring water after a long hike. —Michael Dennis Today’s Book of Poetry, 2018
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…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 Canadian Literature, Autumn 2018
Wavelengths of Your Song (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013)
The poems feel impelled by a passionate, unblinking curiosity about the world and its creatures…The fluidity within the poems is matched by the subtle flow between them…The effect is like that of a symphony with interwoven and subtly varied musical statements, and, as in a symphony, the effect is cumulative…This collection could be enjoyed for the beauty of the language alone. —Jean Van Loon, Arc Poetry Magazine, 17 July 2013
Eleonore Schönmaier…gives us these generously and subtly illuminated glimpses into rooms, conversations, lives…one also hears a constant music in the poetry. — Shawna Lemay, Canadian Poetries, 9 September 2013
[H]er poetry’s sensuality, and its corresponding intimations that well-being of any kind is the product of practiced intimacy…A generous and thoughtful collection…Schönmaier’s attention is paid in equal measure to music, ecology, family, loss and love. —Tina Northrup, The Antigonish Review, April 2014
She is able to find beauty everywhere and express it so that you are transported …Schönmaier is able to give voice to the connection she has with the world and make it splendid…This is accomplished poetry. —Michael Dennis, Today’s Book of Poetry, July 2016
Treading Fast Rivers (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
The natural world is prominent, almost dreamlike in Treading Fast Rivers, and starkly beautiful….Treading Fast Rivers is strong poetry. —Shane Neilson, Prairie Fire Review of Books
Schönmaier’s poetic world is a deftly-realized visual landscape….allowing her to examine—with clear-eyed perceptiveness—the territory of the heart. [Schönmaier] is alert to the sensual possibilities of the world. These poems…delight in the richness of experience. —Anne Simpson, Atlantic Books Today
Her poems open windows not so much onto but in their subjects…they describe a kind of reverence. —Susan Gillis, League of Canadian Poets
She has begun to make beauty.…wonderfully unforgettable. —M. Travis Lane, Fiddlehead
Schönmaier’s poetic gifts are apparent. —Christian Riegel, The Antigonish Review