Overview

Eleonore Schönmaier explores three great forests of her life through the lens of experiential environmentalism. Along woodland trails and on the shores of essential bodies of water, she reveals beauty and loss in equal measure in these poems. Wildlife appears at regular intervals, never when expected. In Schönmaier’s boreal forest childhood, she witnesses human and environmental exploitation and lives a life of labour. In a moment of joy, a canoe transforms into a sled. As she moves into adulthood, music creates a pulse to her life and her poems. In a heatwave, two pianists perform Wasserklavier in a botanical garden. A singer works in the Dutch resistance. A Greek composer creates love songs. An organist rides the rear carrier of a bicycle. Turkish composer Fazl Say performs his Black Earth. Goldfinches, blue-winged teals, waterthrushes, blue herons, and flickers inhabit the pages of Rush of Wingspan. The soundscape of these poems is intimate in scale – about nature, art, animals, cycling – chamber music more than opera. Love is the blue-river thread in the warp and weft of the collection. Schönmaier’s focus on planetary and human rights is the red-blood contrast.

Full Product Details

Author:   Eleonore Schönmaier
Publisher:   McGill-Queen's University Press
Imprint:   McGill-Queen's University Press
ISBN:  

9780228027164

ISBN 10:   0228027160
Pages:   192
Publication Date:   17 March 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

NORTHERN BUSH Understatements 3 Counting 4 Visible 5 Pretending 6 Overburden 7 Fields 8 Thawing 9 When Southerners Ask About the Animals 10 Lamplight 11 Surfaces 12 Weasels 13 Newspaper Girl 14 Wallet 15 Babysitter 16 Party 17 Into the Garden 18 Traces 19 Reaches 20 Swimming 21 Untouched 22 Candy Striper 24 Rumours 25 Security 27 The Library in the Winter 28 Flight into Puppetry 30 Census Taker 32 Ashes 34 Taiga 36 On the Line 37 Tools 38 Penelope 39 ATLANTIC COASTAL FOREST Ancestors 43 Keening 44 Straying 45 Sun-Warmed 47 This Painting Not Yet Hung on the Wall 48 Lullaby 49 Naturally 50 Kindness 51 Riverbeds 52 Joining Us in the Water 54 La Main 55 Burning 56 Floats 58 NORTH SEA CITY FOREST Barn Owls 61 Black Earth 63 Midnight 65 Rhododendron Bush 67 Sunlight 68 The Long Marriage 69 Trains Still Arrive 70 Reunion of Two Lovers 71 Lanterns 72 Much Depends Upon 73 Late 74 WINGS When Wings Open Doors 77 Windows 79 Chance 80 Wings of Voorlinden 82 When the Salons Are Shuttered 84 Over the Edge 85 The Starving 86 Dawning of Dusk Morning 87 Afternoon 88 Night 89 GEOMETRIES OF LIGHT Zoo 93 Star Silt 95 Leiden 97 Blue Light 99 Windowpanes 101 Glint 103 Geometries of Light 104 The Lining 106 Yield 108 Grieving 109 Bowl 110 Clarity 111 NIGHT ALIGNMENTS Tending 115 Night Alignments 116 Bloom 117 These Are the Objects 118 Secret Code 119 Blackbirds and Greenfinches 121 Inventory 123 History 124 Enter 125 Hesitations 126 Blur 128 At Play 129 Model Collapse 130 What Is Left Is 131 Shape 132 Sculpture 133 ENTANGLEMENTS Bodies of Work 137 Art Options 139 The Unwritten Book 140 Starstruck 141 Animals 144 SAILOR When a Friend Lends a Poet Movies 146 When Love Is an Incinerator 147 Great Circle Route 149 All Lit Up 151 While Kissing Onboard 152 Shore Leave Rain 153 The Bliss of Storm Eccentricities 154 Fleeting 155 Open Gates 156 Acknowledgments 159 Notes 163

Reviews

“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

""'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 ""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 ""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 ""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 ""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

Author Information

Eleonore Schönmaier is the internationally trans- lated, award-winning author of Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete, Dust Blown Side of the Journey, and Wavelengths of Your Song. She divides her time between Nova Scotia and coastal Europe.

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