2025 Epistolary Challenge THIRD PLACE WINNER: “NEW BULLETIN BOARD POST” By Sullivan Summer
Frontier Poetry is excited to congratulate the Frontier Editorial team’s pick for the THIRD PLACE winner of the 2025 Epistolary Challenge: “NEW BULLETIN BOARD POST“ by Sullivan Summer.
What starts as an ordinary lost-and-found notice—one missing Scrabble tile, a letter R gone over a balcony—slowly reveals itself as something much larger. This poem transforms a domestic moment between parent and child into a meditation on language, power, and possibility. As the absence of a single letter makes certain words impossible, the speaker catalogs what can no longer be played, spoken, or claimed, and what must be reimagined instead. Tender, political, and quietly urgent, the poem turns a building bulletin board into a stage for grief, hope, and the fragile mechanics of meaning itself.
Enjoy her poem below.
NEW BULLETIN BOARD POST
lost scrabble tile
Monday 11, August 2025 – In Announcements > Lost and Found
If anyone finds a scrabble tile (letter R) please let me know. My daughter and I were playing scrabble on our balcony Monday evening and the tile flew out of her hand and straight off the balcony. We did a search of the roof deck area, but nothing turned up. (There are a lot of plants out there). If you are in an A apartment, perhaps it landed on your balcony. If anyone finds it, I’d be happy to come pick it up. With four Rs on the board and a fifth on my rack, there are words now impossible for my daughter to play, such as:
greatSullivan Summer
Sullivan Summer is a poet, essayist, critic, and adoptee advocate. She is a past participant of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Tin House Workshop, and a graduate of the Brooklyn Poets Mentorship Program. Her work has been published in various outlets, and her first chapbook, Performance Anxiety, was published in 2025 by Black Sunflowers Poetry Press. She lives in New York City.
