our values

We believe in poetry as a space for free and safe expression, life-affirming expression—we do not discriminate on the basis of age, religion, ability, socioeconomic status, gender identity or expression, race, national origin, ancestry, sex or sexual orientation, or for any other reason. Neither will we tolerate discrimination in the poetry we consider for publication. Any discriminatory or harmful work we find in our submissions will be declined without review.

We at Frontier know the publishing world has been and continues to be a feature of systemic racism and discriminatory practices. We are proud to stand with our community in pushing this industry in the right direction, toward anti-racism and equity of opportunity, expression, and justice. We actively seek out and feature work by writers from historically marginalized writers, in particular work by Black and Indigenous writers, writers of color, LGBTQ+ writers, writers with disabilities, and writers at the intersection of these and other marginalized identities.

We also acknowledge that to identify inequality is not the same as dismantling it, and statements such as these, and talk in general, do not count as an active pursuit of true inclusion. Our community today owes so much to our historically marginalized writers, who give so generously of themselves to lead the evolution of a space quick to meet them with hostility or dismissal even as they benefit from their work. As publishers, it is our job to continuously work to change this reality. 

We also value and offer our platform as a safe space for survivors—as the VIDA/CLMP #saferLIT originally phrased it, we commit “to believe victims who come forward about their experiences, and to do what [we] can to assist in getting help and address the situation immediately. To not deny the experience, gaslight, or dismiss those who come forward.” We commit to removing from our platform any writers we’ve published if we learn of their bigotry or harassment elsewhere. To reach our editor, please email megan (@) frontierpoetry (dot) com.