Dust Blown Side of the Journey. Eleonore Schönmaier. Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series. McGill-Queen's University Press. Montreal & Kingston, London, Chicago. 2017.
Today's book of poetry comes to you from the waiting room of a CMA Clinic where Today's book of poetry is having x-rays of everything but our memory. Bless those kind and wise men and women who established a medical care system in Canada that will allow me to leave this building without paying a cent.
I've been here less than ten minutes and already I am in a hospital gown and awaiting my first x-ray. All of this to explain my recent absences. That and Today's book of poetry purchased a new computer yesterday, it was needed. Our steampunk wonder system was an RCA Victor - Westclox hybrid machine that was still running, technically, but it was getting difficult to find a watchmaker-video technician with the right set of brass tipped tools.
Eleonore Schönmaier is such a needed tonic. Today's book of poetry has been down the remarkable Eleonore Schönmaier poetry road before. You might remember that Today's book of poetry took a look at her back in July of last year. Wavelengths of Your Song was a pleasure to read and you can see our post here:
Dust Blown Side of the Journey is more of the same wonder. Schönmaier is a perfect mix of Nelson Ball's wonder and brevity along with the breadth and wisdom, experience and vision of a Lorna Crozier or a Sharon Olds. That is some fine company and Schönmaier is right at home.
Today's book of poetry has been stuck in a poetry whirlwind, tunnel vortex lately and the only person I can blame is the genius Albert Goldbarth. I've been reading Goldbarth's The Kitchen Sink as though it were a bible and I had discovered religion. Our Southern Correspondent, the Twangster, has infected me with Goldbarthism and I'm not sure any other poetry will ever work quite the same way again. But no. Eleonore Schönmaier is the perfect antidote/bookend. Both of these monstrously good poets write poems that stop us with wonder.
But while Goldbarth, bless his cottons socks, is writing long brocaded tapestries that have gold and silver thread and may possibly contain the secrets of the world, Schönmaier, although never terse, is writing with an economy that sustains and winnows to the very heart of things.
Risk
The doorbell has been cut
and the only way to gain entrance is
to stand in the middle of
the bridge jumping up
and down, but this futile
until you begin to sing
and from the upper-floor
window our friends looks
down and lets us in. We sit
at the window and touch
the seashells in their bowl
and our friend picks up
the conch, leans out
the window and lets it sound
so the canal boat captains
travelling below search
for the unseen and
in their confusion they
risk colliding with
the visible. Another
friend arrives and we
wine and dine and play
the Steinway as the storm
quavers against the roof
and the wind and jets flying
low overhead sound
alike as we journey closer
into our true selves
and you talk about
the wind quintet
you're composing
where the clarinet
will sound off stage
and you say all of us
are in your music
along with our missing
friend and walking home
I say, "I've had other
devoted friends before
but this evening's circle
are my soulmates"
and you say, "It's the
soulmates and not
the others who will
break our hearts."
...
Ok. Today's book of poetry is at home, it is twenty-four hours later. The clinic visit was just fine, at least they don't pincushion you. Got home and started to look at the elegant work of Eleonore Schönmaier again and then there was a knock at the 11:30 a.m. door. Today's book of poetry was expecting guests from out of town but was not expecting them to arrive six hours early. Now these are world class guests, always arrive with wine and a variety of gifts. They also always demand to take K and I out to dinner, last night it was Pizzarro's (We've been regulars there for over twenty-five years, I remember writing a poem for the head waiter when his first son was born. A couple of months ago his first born was our waiter. We've never had a meal there we didn't enjoy.) Before our guests left this morning I was the owner of a brand new pair of winter gumboots. Like I said, world-class guests. But six hours early and in need of our complete attention.
Eleonore Schönmaier is a worker. You only have to look at one of her poems to recognize the craft. These poems are worked on, shaved here, strengthened there, and then a perfect coat of clear varnish has been applied. These poems are weather-proof epistles aimed right at your reasonable heart and your emotional head.
Take a hard look at this tidy effort, "Vertebrae of Humans and Art Animals." It's all in there, Schönmaier shows us how it's done.
Vertebrae of Humans
and Art Animals
the breeze against my back
as I cycle through narrow
streets were tattooed
men stroll and when
I make a wrong
turn I'm face to
face with a sculpture
of Mandela and the real
Desmond Tutu stepping
down from the podium
photographers swarm
but I'm unable to stop
since I'm racing
against time to a stretch
of beach where I film
the strandbeest
small sails as wings
and multiple legs
the skeletal animal
all plastic bone
races forward
frangible
how easily
it topples
on my route home I watch
an old man place a metal
ladder against
the barbed wire fence
he hangs a bird feeder
up as high as he can reach
in the center a young friend
(attacked by a mob) undergoes
surgery
vertebrae, scapulae,
phalanges
osteo-sculpture
which bones
fit where
ossicles of
ear
tympani
a wave a wind lifted leaf
under a tree a woman shows
her children how to read
the tally marks
and tells them this is
how many thousands of
days Mandela
had to wait to hear
bird song
when his
captors knew
exactly how
fragile bone is
...
Schönmaier isn't yelling about anything, this poet has far too much class for that. But you read her and you see the strength, you see that she is a strong voice for women against the systemic in justices they endure. You'll see that she is political but never proselytizing. Reading Dust Blown Side of the Journey is like that first long cool and quenching gulp of fresh spring water after a long hike.
Considerable upheaval here at the Today's book of poetry offices these days. Our morning reading was interrupted several times to continue negotiations. It didn't matter much, Eleonore Schönmaier's crisp poems settled the room as we each took our turn and read them like prayers. Of course we threw Wavelengths of Your Song into the mix.
We Are Alone
and lost along
the shore
the gentle slope
of the hill upwards
and we are found
again only when we
recognize the war
memorial where
resistance fighters
were shot and buried
in the sand of the dunes
you were imprisoned
in your youth for being
at the wrong place at the
wrong time, for trying
to make a better world
darkness falls upon
us and there is no
better world, only
the calls of the
nameless birds
in these brief
moments when
the birds still
exist for us: the bell
in the dunes tolls
once a year to
remind us of what
we still have
to lose
...
It doesn't get any tidier. As long as poetry as fine as Eleonore Schönmaier's keeps arriving at the door Today's book of poetry will continue to want to tell you about it.
Today's book of poetry is hoping to return to regular programming as soon as possible. Please stay tuned.
Eleonore Schönmaier
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eleonore Schönmaier is the award-winning author of Wavelengths of Your Song. She divides her time between Canada and coastal Europe.
"Knot"
by
Eleonore Schönmaier
Video: Eleonore Schönmaier
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