Eleonore Schönmaier's forthcoming collection is Rush of Wingspan (March 2026, McGill-Queen's University Press). See reviews below.
The music-theater production Field Guide [to the Lost Flower] in collaboration with the Greek composer Michalis Paraskakis is based on text from Field Guide to the Lost Flower (2021, MQUP), and was premiered at the Athens Epidaurus Festival, 2025. Wavelengths of Your Song (2013, MQUP) was published in German translation as Wellenlängen deines Liedes in 2020 by parasitenpresse (Cologne). Dust Blown Side of the Journey (2017, MQUP) was a finalist for the Eyelands Book Awards (Greece). Treading Fast Rivers (MQUP) was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada.
Schönmaier has taught advanced fiction courses at St. Mary's University, creative writing at Mount Saint Vincent University, along with being the Writing Resource Center Coordinator at MSVU.
Her poetry has been set to music by Canadian, Dutch, Scottish, American and Greek composers including Dorothy Chang, Panos Gklistis, Emily Doolittle, Carmen Braden, and Michalis Paraskakis. She has performed her poetry in concert with the New European Ensemble among others.
She has been honoured with the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, the National Broadsheet Contest, and the CBC Poetry Prize (finalist) among others.
Published in the Academy of American Poets Poem in Your Pocket Day booklet in 2018 and 2021, and the League of Canadian Poets Poem in Your Pocket Day Brochure in 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2023. She has also been widely anthologised in the United States and Canada including in Best Canadian Poetry.
Praise for Rush of Wingspan
“With a purity that stuns, these poems unfurl a consciousness that is exquisitely alert – to sensory and interior worlds, to the textures of human love and its deprivations. Each poem its own concentrated morsel, each poem leaving you needing the next.” Julie Sedivy, author of Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love
“Eleonore Schönmaier’s Rush of Wingspan is a sanctuary of stillness, offering a space for clarity and reflection. Her prismatic poems navigate silence, perception, and memory with a painterly delicacy, encouraging the reader to forge a deeper connection with oneself and the natural world.” J. Mae Barizo, author of Tender Machines
“The rush of a life fully lived, swift and ephemeral. A span from tenderness to brutality, activity to contemplation, nature to art. Though tethered to the witnessed world, Schönmaier’s visionary attention holds these poems aloft.” Stephanie Bolster, author of Long Exposure
“‘If we want / clarity,’ writes Eleonore Schönmaier, ‘we should try casting / a bronze sculpture’ – but ‘her new book suggests another source of rare clarity: reading poetry like hers. In blending spareness and amplitude, memories and immediacy, these poems are among her most riveting ever.” Brian Bartlett, author of The Astonishing Room
“Rush of Wingspan is a stunning collection that distills and details youth’s harsh realities, love’s adult healing, and the natural world enfolding them. Eleonore Schönmaier shows life in all its depths and beauty where ‘light in its fullness / both fades and brightens,’ illuminated by her poetic brilliance.” Kevin Irie, author of The Tantramar Re-Vision
