THE FLEA’s Submissions Portal Closing 20/12/2009

THE FLEA will close for submissions from Sunday >>>20/12/2009<<< until further notice. There remain a very few places in future issues up until May 2010. I still have many fine submissions received to evaluate, so if you have already sent me work you should hear from me over the next few weeks. If I have already accepted poems from you which I have not yet published, I will have indicated in the acceptance letter which issue and date of THE FLEA your poem will appear in; that might not necessarily be the very next issue. Poems have often been accepted for several issues ahead: do please check your acceptance letter for the exact issue & date of publication before assuming I have forgotten to publish it. If there is still a question, then by all means contact me.

THE FLEA Broadhseets will always remain online, & will probably also be permanently archived by the National Library of Australia's PANDORA project, as are The Chimaera and Shit Creek Review.

My thanks to all who have supported THE FLEA, & have won for it thereby such high reputation in the Commonwealth's opinion for the excellent quality of the poetry exhibited therein.

The Season of THE FLEA

You've got to pick up every stitch,
The rabbit’s running in the ditch,
Beatniks are out to make it rich,
Oh no! Must be the Season of the Witch...

http://www.the-flea.com

Thomas Zimmerman, Marly Youmans, Gail White, Timothy Murphy, Rick Mullin, David W. Landrum, Rose Kelleher, Clive James, Jan Iwaszkiewicz, Midge Goldberg, Richard Epstein, Ann Drysdale, Kevin Cutrer, Norman Ball, Gene Auprey, Mark Allinson, Mary Alexandra Agner.

___________

NB: If, Gentle Poet, you have sent a submission to THE FLEA since October 5th and have not yet heard back from me, fear not. I have a large pile of submissions and I am methodically working my way through it, placing accepted poems into various issues of THE FLEA for 2010. But if you have not heard from me in over eight weeks concerning your submission, by all means email me and make enquiry.

FLEA Fancier-Fest

Comments on The Flea

* "The Flea is a wondrous new 'zine, marked by the rare imagination and verve of Paul Stevens. What a sparkling, spanking-new idea for a literary magazine!"

—Marly Youmans, The Palace at 2:00 a.m.


* "Paul Stevens’ latest editorial achievement, The Flea, is now online–worth perusing as much for the idiosyncratic house style as for the excellent poetry contained within by such luminaries as Rhina Espaillat, Rose Kelleher, Tim Murphy, and, of course, yours truly."

—Anna Evans, Dreaming in Iambic Pentameter


* "...I’d opened the link to The Flea and been magically transported to a poet’s castle where the emperor’s new clothes were actually made of fabric instead of wishful thinking....

"...I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing really worth reading being published and I was wrong. Go, go to The Flea. Read it and be grateful. I’ll be collecting all the useless print journals I’ve got sitting around and firing up the barbecue. Maybe the light of the flames will inspire me. At least I know that there is still poetry in the world that speaks to the mind and heart without navigating through the navel first and miring us all in the lint so often found therein."

—Christine Kloceck-Lim, November Sky Poetry


* "It's splendid, Paul. I'm proud to be part of it. Poetry and Hudson
pay better, but The Flea is better company."

—Timothy Murphy


* "The Flea's elegance is surpassed only by its high quality of verse. Seeing all the Sphereans together makes me realize what a gaggle of fine poets visit these boards. Paul Stevens has done a fine job--as have all the contributors."

—Lance Levens


* "I've just finished another of several readings of this Flea, and it truly is a wondrous assemblage of quality poems. I wish it was a paper thing I could hold within my hands.

Congratulations to all Spherians involved - all powerful poets showing poems that represent the best of their work, I believe.

Thank you so much for the invigorating experience, Paul. Great work."

—Cally Conan-Davies


* "The Flea always leaves me itching for more"

—Patti McCarty


* "I just hope you know you ruined my well-planned day, Paul. Really, I have a long list of important things to do today, including mow the lawn before the neighbors get up a petition and get the books alphabetically back on the shelves so I can find them when I need them, yadda-yadda.

But now I will have to sit down and read this wonderful broadsheet. Really, there is no alternative.

It looks so inviting. Another fine contribution to the world of "literary labors of love"."

—Janice D. Soderling


"Beautiful fanciful concept."

—Janet Kenny


"Paul, you're tireless! This is impressive and (Peter be praised) gorgeous."

—Kate Benedict, Editor, Umbrella

At the round earth's imagin'd corners

At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scatter'd bodies go!

Yes, me friend, me good friend,
Dem say we free again.
Yes, me friend,
We deh a street again.

The bars could not hold me;
Force could not control me now.
They try to keep me down,
But Jah put I around. Yeah!

Yes, I've been accused many a times
And wrongly abused, now.
Oh, but through the powers of the Most-High,
They've got to turn me loose.
Don't try to hold me up on this
bridge, now.
I've got to reach Mount Zion -
The highest region.
So if you a bull-bucka,
Let me tell you this -
I'm a duppy conqueror - conqueror.

Yes, me friend, me good friend,
Dem say we free again.
Yes, me friend, me good friend,
We deh a street again.

So don't try to cold me up
on this bridge, now.
I've got to reach Mount Zion -
The highest region.
So if you a bull-bucka,
Let me tell you this:
I'm a duppy conqueror - conqueror.

Yes, me friend,
Dem say we free again.
Yes, me friend,
Dem set we free again.
Yes, me friend, me good
friend...

Art by Pat Jones http://imagineii.typepad.com/imagineii/

Caratacus Rides Again!

My Domus Carataci personal blog on JournalSpace with years of posts was destroyed when JournalSpace's server crashed in 2007. Since then I haven't run a personal blog, channeling most of my energies into Shit Creek Review, The Chimaera and THE FLEA and their respective blogs. But some material fits better onto a personal blog than onto the more formal context of a literary magazine's blog; with that in mind I have revived Domus Carataci, now on Blogspot, and renamed it I, Caratacus. I will update it from time to time, whenever Bloggina, the Muse of Bloggers, inspires me.

Pushcart and Best of Web Nominations 2009

SCR/The Chimaera/The Flea

2009 Nominations for the Pushcart — Best of the Small Presses Anthology and the Dzanc Books Best of the Web Series.


Pushcarts

SCR

'Prayer for a Horseman' by Timothy Murphy

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue10/prayer-for-a-horseman/


'After the Funeral' by Janice D. Soderling

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue9/after-the-funeral/


'After Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night' by Sam Byfield

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue9/after-van-goghs-cafe-terrace-at-night/


'Kung Fu Monkeys Hijack Armored Car' by Dennis Loney

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue9/kung-fu-monkeys-hijack-armored-car/


'Life' by Bill Greenwell

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue10/life/


'Monstrance or Reliquary' by Ann Drysdale

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue10/monstrance-or-reliquary/



The Chimaera


'The Red Mud of Lydney' by Ann Drysdale

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Aug2009/Spotlight/AnnDrysdalePoems.html


'An Understudy for Desire' by Alan Gould

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Aug2009/Poems/Gould.html


'Lighthouse, with Poet Brandishing His Hat' by Rhina P. Espaillat

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Aug2009/Theme/Poems/Espaillat.html


'Talcott Mountain' by Martin Elster

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Aug2009/Theme/Poems/Elster.html


'The Annexe' by Stephen Edgar

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Feb2009/Spotlight/StephenEdgarPoems.html


'I Am Going Drown' by Charles Musser

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Aug2009/Theme/Poems/Musser.html



The Flea


'Two Theories' by Rhina Espaillat

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue2/TwoTheories.html


'Against Beauty' by Alfred Nichol

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue2/AgainstBeauty.html


'High Bank' by Bill Greenwell

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue2/HighBank.html


'Body of Evidence' by Catherine Chandler

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue1/BodyofEvidence.html


'Iconography' by Maryann Corbett

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue3/Iconography.html


'Said Yeats’s Bones to Hardy’s Heart' by Ann Drysdale

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue3/SaidYeats_sBones.html




Dzanc Books Best of Web

http://dzancbooks.org/BestOfTheWeb/index.html


SCR

'After the Funeral' by Janice D. Soderling

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue9/after-the-funeral/


'Prayer for a Horseman' by Timothy Murphy

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue10/prayer-for-a-horseman/


'Death Watch' by Michael Cantor

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue10/death-watch/


The Chimaera

'Sonnet 23 from The Dark Lady' by Jennifer Reeser

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Aug2009/Poems/Reeser.html


'Distraction' by Rick Mullin

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Feb2009/Theme/Poems/Mullin.html


'Seeing People' by Geoff Page

http://www.the-chimaera.com/Aug2009/Poems/Page.html



The Flea


'Vertigo' by Stephen Edgar

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue1/Vertigo.html


'Clock of the Moon and Stars' by Marly Youmans

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue2/ClockoftheMoonandStars.html


'Hydrangeas' by Mark Allinson

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue3/Hydrangeas.html

Flea Disaster

THE FLEA's computer and much of its back-up went to God on the morning of 4th October due to an unfortunate combination of events involving two poodles, a lunatic cat, a quantity of tequila and a go-go dancer.

I had processed most submissions through to the end of August and sent off accept/decline letters. But if you submitted work before October 4th 2009 and have not heard back from me, you need to send me the work again. 

Also, poets whose work I have accepted for issues 4 and following will need to send me that accepted work again. Amongst many other things I lost my email address book. I have a hard copy of what I had accepted for each particular issue of THE FLEA so I expect to get to each author eventually, but if you are an author whose work I accepted, please contact me so I can access your email address.

Needless to say I am mortified by these events, and apologise to all concerned.