Sky by Eleonore Schönmaier

February 10, 2022
Poem name: Sky Poet name: Eleonore Schönmaier Poem begins: A slim woman stands in a baby pool, no water. She wears a wetsuit, swim cap and in her left hand grasps a pully looped over the swing-set. She mimics the front crawl. A great blue heron swoops low over our silent highway. An inflated blue sofa moulds the curved shape of my curly haired neighbour on his front lawn. Under our unscratched sky the air is brisk, clear. Spaced apart we sit near the backyard pond, surrounded by empties: Blue Light. End of poem. Credits: Copyright © Eleonore Schönmaier “Sky” received an honourable mention in the Arc Award of Awesomeness (December 2020), and was published in talking about strawberries all of the time (April 2021). Eleonore Schönmaier most recent collection is Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021). Wavelengths of Your Song (MQUP, 2013) was published in German translation as Wellenlängen deines Liedes (parasitenpresse, 2020). Dust Blown Side of the Journey (MQUP, 2017) 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. She has taught advanced fiction courses at St. Mary’s University, creative writing at Mount Saint Vincent University, and has worked as a poetry mentor for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. Her poetry has been set to music by Canadian, Dutch, Scottish, American and Greek composers and she has performed her poetry in concert with The New European Ensemble among others. She has won the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and the National Broadsheet Contest 2019. She has also been widely anthologised in the United States and in Canada including Wild Gods (New Rivers Press, 2020) and Best Canadian Poetry in English. eleonoreschonmaier.com