A Timely Announcement

The submissions Portal of THE FLEA will swing creakily open on 22nd December 2010, that being one Yeare and a Day since it laste faste clos’d. THE FLEA expecteth to remain open to poetickal Submissions for at least one month past that daye of December 22nd; thereafter, when Yr Hmble Editor may opine that sufficient worthy Poems have accumulated to keep this Metaphysicalzine a-hopping and a-popping for the next few terms, the Portal will again slam dustily shut. Poems accepted during this reading period will not necessarily be publish’d in the very first Broadsheet of 2011, but will appear in various issues over the first six Monthes of that year.

THE FLEA calls for no enforc’d Theme in workes submitted to it. It prefers to dine on formal verse, but does not revile well-crafted vers libre, in the style favour’d in the Virginia colonies & among some Continental versifyers. The tiny Insecte’s own Proboscine Instincte for what pleaseth it well, must remaine, as from its very inception, its principal Criterion in chusing meete Verses to exhibit within these Broadsheets; but Poetry which toucheth happily on matter or style congenial to our late glorious Elizabethan Age, or to our modern Jacobean reigne, will invite the keene attention of Yr Hmble Bug-Ey’d Editor; as moreover, for the general, will verses that do not resile from complex Allusion, unexpected Imagery, or darkness of poetick Style. THE FLEA ever strives to chuse poetry which shines with exuberant Witte, daring Conceites, & fine intellectual Play, & which is express’d with exquisite imagistic & emotional Modulation. But no doctrinaire Orthodoxy may be discern’d in THE FLEA’s selection regime; merely the sharpe glimmer of the sotte-weede sodden Editor’s capricious Whim and consider’d Judgment.

THE FLEA has been justly endors’d and celebrated by Poets, Criticks & Wittes, from our far-flung colony of New York, even unto Shepton Mallet, and beyond! It boasts an extensive & gentle Readership, having published numerous widely-fam’d Authors, epical, lyrical, mediatative & metaphysickal; shining Luminaries of the vary’d Poetickal-Celestial Spheres.

Therefore, Ye Poets, Bards, Vates, Native-Wittes, University-Wyttes, Gentlemen, Lords & Ladies, Clerkes, Scriveners, Roaring-Boyes, Roaringe-Girls, Tom o'Bedlams, Abraham Men, Upright Men, Dells, Doxies, Cony-Catchers, Bawdie-Baskets, & all the vary’d ranks & degrees of the Canting Crewe — take up your Quills! Invoke the Muse, and cunnyngely compose, with an Eye ever fix’d to thys bright Portal of Poetickal Opportunity!

Yrs &c,

Paul Stevens B.A. (Hons), Dip.Ed, Fellowe of the Royal Society of Alchymists & Astrologers