2021 OPEN Finalists: Part 3 of 3

By Frontier Poetry | October 7, 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, and Part 2 of the finalists here. For Part 3, we’re sharing work by Natalie Dunn, Heidi Seaborn, and Shaina Phenix.

The Origin of Fish by Natalie Dunn

Natalie Dunn’s writing has or will appear in The Believer, Conduit, BOAAT, The Kenyon Review, The Normal School and elsewhere. She has received support from The Community of Writers and the Hedgebrook foundation. She is at work on her debut novel.

Zuihitsu Catalogue of Hungers and Hopes by Heidi Seaborn

After a raising three children and a long business career, Heidi Seaborn started writing poetry in 2016. Today, she is the author of [PANK] Poetry Award winner An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe (2021), Give a Girl Chaos (C&R Press, 2019) and the Comstock Review Prize Chapbook, Bite Marks (2021), as well as chapbooks, Finding My Way Home (2018) and Once a Diva (2021). Heidi’s won or been shortlisted for over two dozen awards. Her work has recently appeared in American Poetry Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, The Cortland Review, The Greensboro Review, The Missouri Review, The Offing, The Slowdown, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Washington Post and elsewhere. She is Executive Editor of The Adroit Journal and holds an MFA in Poetry from NYU. heidiseabornpoet.com

Hydrant Ode by Shaina Phenix

wade in the water, wade in the water children

Shaina Phenix is a queer, Black femme poet, other-art-maker, educator from Harlem, NY. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Virginia Tech and is the 2021-2022 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in West Branch Wired, Glass, Foglifter Press, Salt Hill Journal, CRAFT, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Pinch Journal, and Puerto del Sol.