Slowly by Eleonore Schönmaier

August 18, 2023
Poem title: Slowly Poet name: Eleonore Schonmaier Poem: Last time you gave me a jar of seaweed you gathered and pickled for me. I rationed it out slowly. Bliss. Did the green bulbous strands contain an essential mineral I was lacking or was it only the memory of those days on your island? This time on my last day we sit in a cafe eating our favorite lemon tarts and you reach into your packsack and bring out three pomegranates from the tree in your garden. I pack them gently among my summer dresses and at home I set them on the glass tabletop afraid to slice into them. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Eleonore Schönmaier Previously published in Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021). Eleonore Schönmaier is the author of poetry, essays, and fiction. Born into a working class migrant family, she was raised in a northern wilderness settlement. She has also lived on the shores of Lake Ontario, the North Sea, and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Her many awards include the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, the National Broadsheet Contest prize, the Sheldon Currie Fiction award (second place), the Dave Williamson National Short Story award (honourable mention), and the Earle Birney Prize. In 2022 she received a Writers’ Union of Canada grant to write an essay about love. Her poems have been set to music by Greek, Dutch, Scottish, American and Canadian composers including Carmen Braden, Michalis Paraskakis, and Emily Doolittle. The New European Ensemble and the St Andrews New Music Ensemble have performed her poetry in concert. Her latest collection is Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete (McGill-Queen’s University Press). Wavelengths of Your Song (MQUP) was published in German translation as Wellenlängen deines Liedes (parasitenpresse, 2020). Dust Blown Side of the Journey (MQUP) was a finalist for the Eyelands Book Awards 2020 (Greece). Her poetry has been widely anthologized in the United States and Canada including in Best Canadian Poetry.