Wavelengths of Your Song
Description
At night we swim / following the fence: / diverted / we enter the net / shaped like a heart / and in the heart the hook / guides us to the back A stunning unfolding of memory, Wavelengths of Your Song juxtaposes a childhood in the northern Canadian wilderness with the adventures of an international creative life. Genuine environmentalism is at the heart of this collection. Migrations of birds and humans lend their songs to the vivid writing and a tangible, sensory reality emerges from their sounds. Music by Beethoven and Rzewski, paintings by Norval Morrisseau and Kandinsky, and writing by Kafka and Celan, inspire Eleonore Schönmaier's poetry. She takes the reader on unexpected journeys skiing across frozen lakes, cycling along Dutch canals, or hiking in Malta and New Zealand. With surprising, at times breathtaking connections, she illuminates hot air ballooning, canoe camping, planting trees on Vienna rooftops, and the bathing of a black horse in the North Sea. In poems that travel extensively around the globe, in lists for living well, and in love letters, Eleonore Schönmaier takes the reader on a journey along the wavelengths of the ocean, sound, and the physics of light.
Reviews
"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
“In this newest collection, Schönmaier offers an assortment of carefully crafted poems, and conveys an underlying and powerful sense of longing for home.” Lake Journal
“Even had I not read the short biographical note saying Eleonore Schönmaier ‘divides her time between Canada and The Netherlands,’ I would have wanted to make connections between her poems and the work of 17th century Dutch painters. She gives us these g
“The fluidity within the poems is matched by the subtle flow between them. One slips into the next through images: forest, snow, cello music, wind, the sea, horses, chocolate. The effect is like that of a symphony with interwoven and subtly varied musical statements, and, as in a symphony, the effect is cumulative.” Arc Poetry Magazine
"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
"Her poems open windows not so much onto but in their subjects...they describe a kind of reverence." Susan Gillis, League of Canadian Poets