The Fabulous Golden FLEA Awards 2010

Your Humble Editor hath, after much meditative scrutiny of his critical Faculties, decided upon Five winners of the totally unsubstantial, impalpable & non-corporeal Golden Flea Awards; whiche trophies, constructed entirely of Golde to ayrey thinnesse beate, & utterly lacking in Ontological Substance, are awarded to the following Poems, publish’d in THE FLEA during the previous Twelvemonth & a Day; viz,

Item, The Once-onlie, Nirvana-Supreme, Non Plus Ultra, Grand Cosmic Order of The Golden Flea is awarded to ‘The Pismire Oration’ by Margaret Griffiths http://www.the-flea.com/Issue8/EpigraphPismire.html

Golden Flea Awards are also hereby presented to,

Item, ‘Against Beauty’ by Alfred Nicol http://www.the-flea.com/Issue2/AgainstBeauty.html

Item, ‘Metre-wanker’ by Ann Drysdale http://www.the-flea.com/Issue6/MetreWanker.html

Item, ‘Small Game on the Prairie’ by Timothy Murphy http://www.the-flea.com/Issue7/SmallGameonthePrairie-2.html

Item, ‘Starfish Harvest’ by Amit Majmudar http://www.the-flea.com/Issue8/StarfishHarvest.html

The 2010 Golden Flea Awards will be delyver’d instanter by shining Angels to the Fortunate Recipients; & that to be done imperceptibly, on the Metaphysical Plane, all with the Blessing of The Soveraygne Muse.

THE FLEA rave -- free bugs!

Come to THE FLEA Circus and Bug Rave — a cast of trillions!

http://www.the-flea.com/

The Green Contagion

Yr Hble & Obdt has a poem and reading in the new issue of Soundzine: The Green Contagion. I am also the reader for the poems of Howard Miller and Martin Elster.

One of my poems, The Hidden Muse, was selected by the Editors as one of the best ten poems ever published in Soundzine.

The Flea Gloweth Deepest Rubedo

A Flea moreover which transmuteth that which is base imperfect Mettle into Gold,  & whych projecteth many a Stone Philosophickal or Nugget Poetickal thereby; as witnesseth Philip Quinlan, Leo Yankevich, Joseph Salemi, Fr. Robert J. Pecotte, Geoff Page, Amit Majmudar, Rose Kelleher, Nigel Holt, Bill Greenwell, Alan Gould, Louis Gallo, Angela France, Nausheen Eusuf, Stephen Edgar, Ann Drysdale, Kevin Cutrer, Peter Coghill, C.E. Chaffin & Jared Carter.

http://www.the-flea.com/

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