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,…
It’s time to congratulate the WINNER of the Frontier Poetry 2024 Nature & Place Contest, Zachary Scalzo. Their gripping poem, “Sometimes—there’s God—so quickly.” was selected by our judge, Flower Conroy. Here’s what Conroy has to say about the winning poem: …
Courtney DuChene’s poem, “What My Grandmother Nestles in the Earth,” evokes a tension between the bursts of color that she evokes in the poem using floral imagery, and the fragility of human bodies and minds, focusing in particular on memory.…
Ruby Maghoney invites us into a suddenly visceral space with the image of squeezing the tangerine, but then quickly pivots, pressing us as readers to juxtapose this deeply physical and intimate image with an immediate pivot to implications of loss…
It’s time to congratulate the Third Place Winner of Frontier Poetry‘s 2024 Nature & Place Contest, Rebekah A. Sankey. Read their arresting poem, selected by Flower Conroy, “The Pond, Early Spring.” Become enthralled with the earth as Sankey depicts nature…
Welcome to LINE LEVEL: Craft Lessons from Poets of Color, a monthly column in which writer, editor, and educator Joanna Acevedo zooms in on an element of craft from the work of BIPOC poets. LINE LEVEL unfolds in three parts:…
Jeremy Karn’s work in “first winter in iowa city,” initially feels tentative, as this speaker navigates the boundaries of this new relationship and the boundaries of intimacy and culture that seem to fluctuate between speaker and subject, but by the…
In Sharon Zhang’s “Last Date,” her speaker encounters love from all angles, in a sly merging of pregaming and praxis. The writing is quick and energetic, but Zhang’s fresh voice isn’t flip or glib; rather this speaker is quite rigorous…
“The moon has no need for your poetry,” Ben Cooper says, and he’s right. Sometimes we have to hear difficult truths, difficult versions of the truth. But in his poem, “What Words Do I Not Yet Have,” Cooper doesn’t look…
It’s time to give a big congratulations to the winner of Frontier Poetry’s Nature & Place Prize, Zachary Scalzo. Their riveting poem, “Sometimes—there’s God—so quickly.,” was selected by our guest judge Flower Conroy. As always, the Frontier Poetry reading and…
