Eleonore Schönmaier : part one

Canadian writer Eleonore Schönmaier’s new collection Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete is forthcoming in 2021 from McGill-Queen's University Press. Greek composer Michalis Paraskakis is weaving selected poems from the collection into the music-theatre multimedia work Field Guide for one piano, two pianists, electronics and video. Wavelengths of Your Song (MQUP, 2013) was published in German translation in 2020 by parasitenpresse (Cologne).  Schönmaier is also the author of the critically acclaimed Dust Blown Side of the Journey (MQUP, 2017) and Treading Fast Rivers (MQUP, 1999). Dust Blown Side of the Journey is a finalist for the Eyelands Book Awards 2020 (Greece). She has won the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, the Sheldon Currie Fiction Prize (second place) and the 2019 National Broadsheet Contest among others. Her poetry has been included in the League of Canadian Poets and the Academy of American Poets Poem in Your Pocket Day Brochure, and has been widely anthologized including in Best Canadian Poetry.  Born and raised in a remote settlement in the northern Canadian wilderness she now divides her time between Atlantic Canada and coastal Europe. She is currently studying music with the Greek composer and pianist Panos Gklistis.  https://eleonoreschonmaier.com

How important is music to your poetry?

Music is an integral and interwoven part of my life and my poetry. Greek, Scottish, American, Dutch and Canadian composers have set my poetry to music including Michalis Paraskakis, Carmen Braden and Emily Doolittle. I've performed on stage with musicians where I recited poems from memory or as part of composed scores. When I write poems the sound of the words and the rhythms of the language are essential to the process. I usually write poems in my mind, often during walks. Only after the images and sounds of the words are almost fully formed do I place the poem on the page.  Many rewrites follow but the essence of the poem, the imagery and sound-language is there from the start. Many of my poems contain musical references: some are overt and some are layered in the depths. About ten years ago I started to study music, specifically the piano. How my poems have changed during the subsequent years is difficult for me to disentangle but I think the influence has been substantial. I never listen to music when I'm writing because when I hear music my mind is fully engaged with the music and when I write poetry my writing brain is full on and the music is already part of my mind, my memory, my breath.