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Double Stream
Poems by Ellen Dooling Reynard
Paintings and Drawings by Paul Reynard
21 Poems ~ 24 Illustrations ~ 53 pages
Price: $25.00
Publisher: South 40 Press
ISBN #: 978-1-7923-9747-9
To Order:
Gurdjieff Books and Music: https://www.gurdjieffbooksandmusic.com
By the Way Books: https://www.bythewaybooks.com
ABOUT THE BOOK:
This collection of ekphrastic poems is in honor of a selection of paintings and drawings by the poet’s late husband, the French artist Paul Reynard. Each poem is accompanied by an image of the artwork. Many times during his lifetime, the artist expressed his wish that his wife would write about his work, and it was only recently, when she turned her attention to writing poetry, that she was able to grant this wish.
ADVANCE PRAISE:
Double Stream, by Ellen Dooling Reynard, is a journey toward light. Reynard, working within the artistic light provided by the works of Paul Reynard, provides a segue into two worlds: excellent poetry paired with incomparable art. This is ekphrastic poetry at its finest. The term Ekphrastic from the Greek, means Description. In the capable hands of both artist and poet, the term takes on a special significance: one enters the sanctified world of spiritual renewal.
–Michael Escoubas, author of Ripples Into the Light–PhotoPoetry, with Photographer Van-dana Bajikar
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ellen Dooling Reynard spent her childhood on a cattle ranch in Jackson, Montana. She turned to poetry writing in her early seventies, recalling the sense of wonder she acquired from her early home-school education which focused on myths and fairy tales. Her poetry has appeared in various journals including Persimmon, Silver Blade and The Muddy River Poetry Review. Her first chapbook, No Batteries Required, was published in 2021 by Yellow Arrow Publishing.
Ellen spent some years on the editorial staff of Parabola Magazine, the journal of myth and tradition that was founded by her mother, Dorothea Matthews Dooling. She was the co-editor of A Lively Oracle: A Centennial Celebration of P.L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins (Larson Publications, 1999).
When she was in her sixties, Ellen married her second husband, the French painter Paul Léon Reynard. Since his death in 2005, she has spent many hours contemplating his art work, which gave rise to the creation of this collection of poems.
Ellen has recently moved to Grass Valley, California where she continues to write fiction and poetry. You can find her on Facebook at Ellen Dooling Reynard, or on her website at https://www.ellendoolingreynard.com.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Paul Léon Reynard (1927-2005) was born in Lyon, France. He studied in Paris in the 1940s at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and with Fernand Léger and Jean Souverbie. In the 1950s he collaborated in the installation of stained-glass windows at the newly constructed church of Baccarat which had been bombed by the allies during the war. In the early 1960s, Reynard taught drawing at the Écoles d’Art Américaines in Fontainebleau, and at schools in Angers and Besançon.
He moved to the United States in 1968 where he taught drawing at Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, and the School of Visual Arts. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Reynard painted murals in the New York area, including one at 100 Park Avenue in New York City, and another at Harvard University. During this time he had solo shows in New York and throughout the United States and Canada.
Following his retirement from teaching in 2002, Reynard collaborated with the editors of Paul Reynard: Work in America (Seattle: Dancing Camel Editions, 2010).
For more information see https://www.paulreynard.com
FROM THE BOOK:
The Flight of the Eagle by Paul Reynard
1983 Acrylic on canvas
Flight of the Eagle
by Ellen Dooling Reynard
powerful wings beat
the evening air,
shatter the sunset
in headlong flight
to the other side
of night
darkness lowers,
blankets the setting sun
and the great bird
flexes and stretches
his muscled pinions
will he reach the sun
will he singe his wings
will he see the light
of his longing?
now gone from our sight
he is lost–only for us–
his wings carry him
into the winds
of space and time.
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