Author's Statement :: A true poem will almost write itself — not in an automatic ouija board kind of way — but in the Greek poïesis communal sense and in the Mexican poet Heriberto Yépez's ethopoetics sense of re-writing one's self, stepping through the ego to get beyond it, to scrape down to what is true of human experience and human being. I try to discover that truth, whether it be a sense or a sound, a color or a feeling. I try to find what is there behind the night. Poems will do that.
CHAPBOOKS • from beyond my window: the Covid-19 Poems, haiku, Meritage Press, San Francisco, 2020 • < Periodic Earth >, free verse, Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press, Pueblo, CO, 2016. • Twinkle, Twinkle, short poems, Longhouse Publishers, Guilford, VT, 2010. • indra’s net, haibun, bottle rockets press, Wethersfield, CT, 2003, out of print and free to read at Scrib'd: https://www.scribd.com/doc/132231015/ind... • Intimate Boundaries, Selected Poems, self-produced, 1991.
ANTHOLOGIES • Virus Time: Collected Writings by Older Lesbians, (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change, Boston, 2020, Alice Fisher, Sarah Pearlman, Sue Reamer, editors) • The End of the World Project, Vol 1 (Moria Press, IN, 2019, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Richard Lopez, T.C. Marshall, editors) • Verse Osmosis. The Boiler House Poets Tupelo Press-Mass MoCA Residency, Ann Dernier, editor, 2016 • A Vast Sky (Bruce Ross, editor, 2015) • Beyond the Grave (Robert Epstein, editor, 2015) • Haiku 2015 and Haiku 2014 (Lee Gurga, Scott Metz, editors) • Contemporary Haibun, Vols 4 & 15 (Jim Kacian, editor, 2003, 2014) • Peace Is A Haiku Song (City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Sonia Sanchez and Yolanda Wisher, editors, 2013) • Journal of Renga and Renku, Vol 3, (Darlington Press. 2013) • Kamesan's World Haiku Anthology on War, Violence and Human Rights Violation, (Dimitar Anakiev, editor, Kamesan Books, 2013) • We Are All Japan (Alley Cat Books, ltd; Robert D. Wilson, Saša Važić, editors, 2012) • #Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, (Stephen Boyer, Filip Marinovich, editors, NY, NY, 2011) • Dreams Wander On – Contemporary Poems of Death Awareness (Robert Epstein, editor, Modern English Tanka Press, Baltimore, 2011) • seed packets anthology of flower haiku (Stanford Forrester, editor, bottle rockets press, Windsor, CT, 2010) • lanterns, a firefly anthology (Stanford Forrester, editor, bottle rockets press, Windsor, CT, 2007).
PRINT AND ONLINE LITERARY JOURNALS • A) Glimpse) Of) – (Athens, Greece), Autumn Moon Journal, Back Room Live !, Bones (UK), bottle rockets, cattails, Circumference, Contemporary Haibun, Cornell University Mann Library's Daily Haiku, EOAGH, esque, Exit Strata, Fiera Lingue (Italy), Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, Hummingbird, is / let, Kō (Japan), Lilliput Review, Marsh Hawk Press Review, MayDay magazine, Modern Haiku, moon garlic (UK), Naugatuck River Review, On Barcelona, Otata, Otoliths, Poets for Living Waters, Presence (UK), Realities & Rituals of the Upside Down, roadrunner, Solitary Plover, South by Southeast, Spiral Orb, The Daily Art Source, The Helix, The Operating System, Truck, Under the Bashō, Zen Space, Wales Haiku Journal, and Wang Pingʼs Kinship of Rivers.
PUBLISHED ESSAYS • An Altar of Sorts, May 2018, at my (small press) writing day, Rob McLennan, editor. • Earth Day, April 2014, on writing the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku Invitational Honourable Mention poem, “earth day” – at the editor's request • The Black Swans of Ellen Carey: Of Necessary Poetic Realities (2010, 2014), the essay to the exhibition catalogue “Let There Be Light: The Black Swans of Ellen Carey” published by Akus Gallery and Eastern Connecticut State University. The full catalogue with essay may be viewed at http://www.ellencareyphotography.com/ell... • Poetry and Money (#7): Donna Fleischer | A 3-Question Interview, A Sample Poem, and Book List Feature, part of the 2014 “Money and Poetry” series originated by poet Eileen R. Tabios. • The American Haibun by Donna Fleischer (Donna Fleischer © 2008, Lilliput Review, Don Wentworth, editor, 2011).
BROADSIDES OF POEMS BY DONNA FLEISCHER • The 2014 Under the Bashō International Haiku Contest First Prize haiku “late winter –” by Donna Fleischer embossed with depiction of classical Japanese poet Issa seated beneath the willow tree of which he wrote, and with seal. • The haiku “rail cars stacked with wood” by Donna Fleischer, ink-stamped and illustrated on recycled plastic by poet and artist Lily Brown, on January 17, 2011, in Athens, GA (pressing on press, Heidi Lynn Staples, editor). • The haiku “fish clouds birds” by Donna Fleischer, 11 in. x 17 in. four-color process, offset-printed on recycled, 100lb glossy stock (Connecticut River Coastal Conservation District, Inc., 2009). • The Useful Knowledge Press (New Haven, CT) limited edition of Donna’s haiku with wood block engravings by Allan Greenier, 2014, entitled HaiKube™.
OTHER • Donna’s poetry appeared monthly (2010 – 2015) online at the CT Environmental Headlines (Christopher Zurcher, editor). • Her ongoing blog word pond, begun in March 2010, is a curatorial content blog of modern and contemporary poetry, photography, music, visual arts, depth ecology, poetics (eco-, bio-, geo-), and news stories.
EDUCATION • Poetry and Communication Theory, Semiotics, Pragmatics, American and English Literature and History, Botany, and Ecology. University of Connecticut and University of Hartford. BA degree 1988. Ecology course, CT Talcott Mountain Science Center
LIVELIHOOD • master journeyman in pre-press, four-color process film stripping for offset sheetfed and web presses; transitioned to digital technologies in the textbook publishing industry as a Mac operator and proofreader. University of Hartford Biology and Chemistry Departments office coordinator. Fleischer is listed with The Haiku Foundation, that seeks to establish the importance of haiku "as a literary vehicle in the present and future": http://bit.ly/165V29f and The Living Haiku Anthology, published by the journal Under The Bashō (Don Baird, editor).
EDUCATION • University of Hartford, BA, English; Albertus Magnus, MFA, Creative Writing, in progress.
