Exploring the Edges of Contemporary Poetry
2026 Frontier OPEN Winner: “Parasitic Haibun” by Amanda Nicole Corbin
In “Parasitic Haibun” by Amanda Nicole Corbin, they invoke apocalyptic language to create a complex depiction of love, infidelity, desire, and secrecy. The speaker engages in “greedy-freedom.” Amidst the murderous heat, growling air, and blood-letting mosquitos, the lovers in the…
Poetry: “Bloat” by Ava Chen
In a poem comprised of couplets interrupted by one tercet, Ava Chen plumbs the depths of a desire which has inflated beyond the bounds of its relationship of origin. Chen captures this inflation through both the poem’s imagery—”a mouth with…breath…
In a poem comprised of couplets interrupted by one tercet, Ava Chen plumbs the depths of a desire which has inflated beyond the bounds of its relationship of origin. Chen captures this inflation through both the poem’s imagery—”a mouth with…breath…
2026 Frontier OPEN Finalists Part Three: Nirvana Shahriar, Ricardo Moran, and Osmani Ochoa
In “Living Room Lessons,” Nirvana Shahriar moves through a smoke-hazed, searching consciousness where family, memory, and politics begin to blur into one another. Cigarette ash, cardamom tea, a grandmother’s body, a father’s music, and a photograph of Paul McCartney in…
In “Living Room Lessons,” Nirvana Shahriar moves through a smoke-hazed, searching consciousness where family, memory, and politics begin to blur into one another. Cigarette ash, cardamom tea, a grandmother’s body, a father’s music, and a photograph of Paul McCartney in…
In Retrospect: An Interview with Joshua Bennett, Author of We (the People of the United States)
This month’s “In Retrospect” interview is with Dr. Joshua Bennett, whose first collection, The Sobbing School, was a National Poetry Series selection and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. In this series, we ask renowned poets to look back…
This month’s “In Retrospect” interview is with Dr. Joshua Bennett, whose first collection, The Sobbing School, was a National Poetry Series selection and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. In this series, we ask renowned poets to look back…
Read Our Award Winning Chapbooks
Opportunity Cost
read and download our 2021 Chapbook Contest winner
selected by Kazim Ali
// by Abby Johnson //
IN THE YEAR OF OUR MAKING & UNMAKING
read and download our 2020 Chapbook Contest winner
selected by Carl Phillips
// by Frederick Speers //
Shadow Black
read and download our 2019 Chapbook Contest winner
selected by Jericho Brown
// by Naima Tokunow //
How Often I Have Chosen Love
read and download our 2018 Chapbook Contest winner
selected by Joshua Roark
// by Xiao Yue Shan //
