Two Local Poets Read at Nevada County Arts Council on Dec. 9

Nevada City – December 3, 2023 – Nevada County Arts Council and poets Judie Rae and Ellen Reynard invite the community into the Arts Council offices for a reading of their new chapbooks, Family Matters and Double Stream on Saturday, December 9th at 4:00pm.

“When the two poets came to us in need of a space for their reading, we immediately jumped into problem solving mode. A brief conversation yielded the simple yet elegant solution, to host the reading in our downtown Nevada City office.” Stated Michaelyn Logue, Communications Lead for Nevada County Arts Council.

Family Matters by Judie Rae is a delightful examination of the interaction between grandparents and grandchildren; Rae captures not only the humor, but the love between the two generations. An excerpt from the review by Michael Escoubas of Quill and Parchment Reviews makes it all the more clear what listeners and readers have to look forward to. “The best poets have a knack for drawing you in. They have inscrutable eyes. Commonplace things breathe the essential air of love. That’s how it is with Judie Rae. In titles such as: The Woodshed, the scent of wet wood, the musty residue of a leaky roof come through. Unspoken Love, tenderly evokes wonderment as the poet recalls opportunities when she didn’t tell her grandmother how she colored her life, how she gifted her with a childhood worth remembering.”

Double Stream, by Ellen Dooling Reynard, refers to this collection as “ekphrastic poetry”.  The word “ekphrasis” refers to poems about works of art, usually including an exploration of how the speaker is impacted or transformed by his or her experience with the work. This book of poems is about the paintings and drawings of the author’s late husband, the French painter Paul Reynard (1927-2005). Color prints of the artist’s work are included along with the poems.  In the introduction the author expresses “love and gratitude for my late husband, Paul Reynard, whose light-filled paintings shine in my home.”

Judie Rae is the author of four poetry chapbooks as well as the novel The Haunting of Walter Rabinowitz. Her works have appeared in literary magazines such as Nimrod, Wisconsin Review, and Canary Online. Ellen Reynard, former editor of Parabola Magazine, has been published by Yellow Arrow Publishing and Kelsay Books.