Editorial
NOTATE BENE
Concerning the late Ms.Margaret Griffths,
(that same Lady who induc’d & inducted Yr Hble & Obdt &c. into the Mysteries of Poetickal Editing); her
Friends, having labour’d hard & long to collect her Æthernette-scatter’d Verses, have now
publish’d them, printed within a well-bound Book, which bears the title,
Grasshopper,
or,
The Poetry of M.A. Griffiths.
Readers are vrg’d to purchase this rich & rewarding Volume at
The Arrowhead Press,
to be found on the left-hand side of the Æthernette at,
http://arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/grasshopper.html,
hard by the sign of the Flint Arrowhead.
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THE FLEA boundeth nimbly back from Yr Hble & Obt’s long-extended Interlude, and is now fat-stock’d with Verses wrought by various Hands, & garner’d during the recent Portcullis-opening of Flea-Holme; wherewith shall be furnish’d our ætheric Broad-sheets for the next Six-Monthe.
This Broad-sheete XII offers the first-fruites of that abundant Harvest, for the degustation of THE FLEA’s elegant & exquisitely-discriminating Readership; who may linger over the nuances of suche various Poetick flavours & textures as, Mistress Alison Brackenbury’s dry satyre, ‘To Mr W.S., from his agent’, Mistress Rose Kelleher’s exotic & improbable ‘Platypus’, Mistress Jennifer Reeser’s well-matur’d & redolent ‘Recess’, Lady Ann Drysdale’s lusty & poignant ‘From the Diary of the Queen of Naples’, Mr. Amit Majmudar’s fine conceipte of ‘The Yo-yo’ (a meditation worthy of our muche-esteem’d Mr. George Herbert), the powerful keen authenticity of Mr. T.S. Kerrigan’s ‘Matriarch’, or the frothy witte of Mr. Wesli Court’s ‘This Flea on Me’ ( a merry jeste much-admir’d by the giddie bounding frolicksom denizens of Flea-Holme); & many more morsels of Poesie equally deseruing of the toothye & incisiue Byte of THE FLEA.
Od’s little bodikins, Gentle Reader! Hold not back; but nibble, sip and savoure these degustatory, delectatory delights!
Sharpe-ey’d Observers of THE FLEA will have noticed a Tendencie, in the selection of the verses exhibited herein, towards (although not exclusively so) that which seems to touch on matter & form appropriate for the Seventeenth-century; or for verse which, (indited within the grim declination of this Twenty-first century), seems neuertheless to resonate in suche way, that it could be conceiv’d to have been compos’d by one of our Elizabethan, or Jacobean, or Stuart, wittes or worthies, had he, or she, flourish’d poetickally within the style, forms, topoi & tropes held emblematic of this our Second Elizabeth’s longe & glorivs reigne.
Albeit he is not imprison’d within harsh Grates of Iron vpon this heading, Yr Editor will continve to contrive his selections after that same afore-mention’d Tendencie; but allouuing always for his capricious (or Flea-hopping) antick Whim. Nor doth Your Editor conceal his native delight in the intricate, entrancing & organic measures & rimes of Formal Poetry, (as mighte be styl’d the Muse’s Establish’d Churche); and yet neither is he adamantly imperuious to the sober figures of well-crafted lines, cast in the more rawer, less embellish’d, plain-puritanical sentences of Free Verse; (or Vers Libre, in the Frensshe tongue).
It maye be said, moreouer, that in these ovr latter times, THE FLEA’s ætheric Broadsheets serue to publish widely verses & suche by means of the newely-discouer’d Aether-Nette, in a fashion some-deal resembling those Pamphletts & Broad-sheets which flouu’d in a mighetie torrent from the printing-presses of Good Queen Bess’s reigne; for is it not euident that, in both cases, Matter which was preuiousy publish’d in small, & for but a Few, hath, using the newe Devices, come to be pvblish’d at large, & for the Many?
The Submissions-Portcullis for verses for the general ordinarie Broadsheetes of THE FLEA will remain open until January 22nd, 2011; and therevpon will close for an undetermin’d time. And yet a further opportunity for Submissions may be descry’d here within The Flea Blogge, where you may discouer intelligence of a special Bumper Second-Birthday Broadsheet of THE FLEA, to be held in May-month in THE MERMAID TAVERN. Submissions for this special issue will be entertain’d until sufficient distinguish’d Verses have been receiv’d; whereupon the Tavern door, too, will be clos’d.
And so, Flea-ish Afficionados, read on! Yr Hble & Obt unfolds for you—The XIIth FLEA!
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