2021 OPEN Finalists: Part 2 of 3

By Frontier Poetry | October 6, 2021

Thank you for joining us on the journey through the OPEN winners! You can find Chaun Ballard’s winning poem here, and Part 1 of the finalists here. For Part 2, we’re sharing work by Kimberly Nguyễn, Emma De Lisle, and Raphael Jenkins. Part 3 arrives tomorrow!

6 women are murdered man murders 6 women by Kimberly Nguyễn

Kimberly Nguyễn is a Vietnamese-American poet, originally from Omaha, Nebraska but now living in New York City. Her work can be found in diaCRITICS, perhappened mag, Hobart, Muzzle Magazine, and others. She is a recipient of a Beatrice Daw Brown Prize for Poetry, and is currently an Emerging Voices fellow at PEN America.

Ekphrastic For Missing Bosch Figures by Emma De Lisle

Emma De Lisle is a PhD candidate in Religion at Harvard, where she studies poetry, sacramental art, and eucharistic theology. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Conjunctions, Colorado Review, and Peripheries, among others.

WATTUPDOE!!! by Raphael Jenkins

Raphael prefers to go by Ralph, as he feels it suits him better and he’s heard every Ninja Turtle joke ever uttered. He’s a native of Detroit, Michigan currently residing in Kentucky with his Boo-thang and their four-year-old boy. He’s a chef by day and an essayist, poet, screenwriter in his dreams. He, like Issa Rae, is rooting for everybody Black. His work has twice been nominated for Best of the Net, featured on his mama’s fridge, his close friends’ inboxes, 3 Elements Review, Frontier Poetry, Flypaper Lit, Rust + Moth, Alien Literary Magazine and elsewhere. You can find all of his work here: https://linktr.ee/RALPHEEBOI And he’s on TWITTER & IG: @RALPHEEBOI