Eleonore Schönmaier : coda

What poets changed the way you thought about poetry?

Armand Garnet Ruffo, Robyn Sarah, Paul Celan, Gerrit Achterberg, Elisabeth Bishop, Carol Ann Duffy, Constantine Cavafy, Gerrit Kouwenaar, Sadiqa de Meijer, Mark Strand, Robert Haas, Tomas Transtömer, W.S. Merwin, Daniz Smith, Carolyn Forche, Anne Michaels, Don McKay, Seamus Heaney, Menno Wigman, Jack Gilbert, Nelly Sachs, Robin Robertson, Marilyn Dumont, Saskia Hamilton, M. Vasalis, J. Mae Barizo, George Seferis, Odysseus Elytis, Anna Akhmatova, Zbigniew Herbert, Mark Doty and Emily Dickinson.

Eleonore Schönmaier : part five

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author? 

Adam Zagajewski's Another Beauty. He writes, 

Imagination--that same imagination which brings music and poetry to life--is neither perfect nor self-contained.  How often it errs, veers off course, perhaps especially in our day, when it has taken its cue so often from demented ideologies. It needs to work in consort with honesty, common sense, reason--as long as they don't gain the upper hand.

Eleonore Schönmaier : part four

Why is poetry important?

Poetry survives in Canada under the radar. It is under the radar that our true selves are able to flourish both as readers and writers. Shostokovich's string quartets evaded/eluded censorship under the radar in the former Soviet Union.  The difference between Canada and the Soviet Union is that poetry in Canada is under the radar due to indifference rather than dictatorship. By showing up on the radar, poets throughout history have been at risk of persecution and imprisonment.  In prison a memorized poem can keep one alive or I like to hope this is possible. 

W.H. Auden's thoughts are also important. In 1938 he wrote, 

The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us.  I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient:  I hope not. 

I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive, which is why, perhaps, all totalitarian theories of the State, from Plato's downwards, have deeply mistrusted the arts.  They notice and say too much, and the neighbours start talking. (From The Later Auden by Edward Mendelson).

Eleonore Schönmaier : part three

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can't?

Poetry can slip seamlessly into daily life. It can be written on public walls, embroidered on scarves, tattooed on skin, sent as a postcard, quoted in scientific papers, and sung as a song. It can be tweeted or written out by hand in a love letter. Poetry can be part of a movie or a novel.  Poetry can ride the bus or subway as a poetry poster. Poetry can be memorized and carried anywhere in one's mind. Poetry can combine and contain fiction and fact, philosophy and science, music and art and much more.

Eleonore Schönmaier : part two

How do you know when a poem is finished?

When I can carry a poem in my mind fully memorized with comfort and with pleasure along with tugs of language tension (those ah moments) then I know or hope that the poem is complete.  This happens after first mentally composing the poem and then I rewrite the poem many times by hand.  With each rewrite a subtle small change in the poem occurs. I also recite the poem out loud multiple times. When I'm writing, my thoughts are often beyond my own thinking and it is this beyond that I'm striving towards. I never fully arrive in that beyond but it's the striving that matters.

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.