When I Reach by Eleonore Schönmaier

October 12, 2023
Poem title: When I Reach Poet name: Eleonore Schönmaier Poem: the tunnel exit you’ll be there waiting for me sitting on a wooden crate at the side of the tracks you’ll be holding a bowl of pumpkin soup you cooked on a camp stove by the dust blown side of the journey. my hands and face will be dirty and you’ll gently touch my cheek. you’ll give me your spoon. if you’re not there waiting I’ll find the crate and I’ll sit there and wait for you, even when the stars have been wiped from their slate, and the moon is a stained white plate cracked and crowded with insects. I’ll sit on the half broken boards where the faded words once said oranges and there we’ll meet. I’ll give you my hands End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Eleonore Schönmaier Previously published in Dust Blown Side of the Journey (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017) 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.