The structure of Naraya Noor’s “Maternal Instinct,” feels repetitive, but as the reader looks closer, the heartbeat of the poem—a ghazal—brings out the physical language of the body, and the intimacy that the relationship between mother and daughter is invoked…
Kay Kassirer’s “golden shovel after my mother’s affidavit for medical assistance in dying,” is not an easy poem. It’s a difficult poem to consider but that’s why it’s important. Kassirer isn’t pretending that the ugly parts of inequality don’t exist…
The surreal nature and repetitive language in Lisa L. Moore’s “Begin Again,” echoes the desperation that many marginalized communities feel in this current moment. The repeating sonic element of “Let me,” asks for a permission in a way that many…
Join us in celebrating Marianne Kunkel, the winner of our 2024 Frontier OPEN. Read her poem, “To the Man who Hugged Me after I Rear-ended Him,” selected by our editors, below. This year, Kunkel’s poem stood out against a field…
Sheree La Puma’s poem, “She Introduces Herself As Katie,” has a physicality to its weird music, a kind of pulsing rhythm that immediately evokes the body and its sometimes conflicting desires. Ambiguity and tension are hard at work in this…
The moment you’ve all been waiting for: we’re announcing the winners and finalists for the 2024 Frontier OPEN. We’re excited to welcome Marianne Kunkel into the Frontier community with her winning poem, “To the Man who Hugged Me after I…
There’s a surreal element to Zephyr Zhang’s “Object Permanence.” The poem begins somewhat innocuously with, “I am a lock,” but quickly it escalates to, “I am an insecure lock.” Zhang drags us into their emotional world without permission, and while…
Chris Dahl’s “Seventeen,” is sensuous, the kind of luxuriating poem that takes its time as it unwinds, carrying the reader through a journey that ends in a kind of time capsule of youth, beauty, nostalgia and dreamy remembering—for both author…
We’ve got another winning poem on deck! Kiyoko Reidy is the Second Place Winner of Frontier Poetry‘s 2024 Nature & Place Contest. Read their inventive & provocative poem, “Cocke County,” selected by judge Flower Conroy. Here we have a poem…
Jayne Marek’s “Listening for Otters,” has a restrained quality, a sense that we as readers don’t have all the information. But it’s precisely this kind of withholding that draws us into the poem. The writing is tightly controlled and sparse,…
