Frontier Poetry began with the simple mission of being a platform for emerging poets—to uplift, to prepare, and to inspire.
We are looking for poets and poems that strive to place themselves at the edge of what language can do. This does not mean we are only concerned with experimental poetry. We believe sonnets can be at the frontier, book-length poems can be at the frontier, confessional poetry can be at the frontier—as long as a piece is constructed with exceptional consideration for language, craft, and heart, that poem is a fit for us.
Work by new and underrepresented voices is one of our priorities in publication. We take our role as a mediating platform between poet and world seriously and strive to use this role as fairly and justly as we can. The frontier land of poetry, that distant landscape where all voices can be heard clearly and in abundance, where poets from all contexts feel empowered to step into their writing—we seek that place, and hope to plant ourselves in its beauty.
See our What We Look For post for more details. Additional insight into our tastes can be found by browsing our New Voices poets, our previous winners or our Exceptional Poetry series.
If you'd like to read up on advice from experts, browse our Interviews, Editors Talk, or In Class series.
We also invite you to check out these free digital chapbooks:
Please see our submission options. Offering more than a byline, Frontier strives to be a resource not only for new poets, but for agents and other writers to discover new work. We are extremely selective. We are a paying market. We sincerely look forward to reading your work! Check out our FAQ, or send us an email at contact (@) frontierpoetry (dot) com.
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. We do not put up with any discrimination in the poetry we consider for publication.
Any discriminatory 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 with historically marginalized identities, in particular work by Black and indigenous writers, other writers of color, LGBTQ+ writers, and writers with disabilities.
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 authors, 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. Please feel free to email our editor at megan (@) frontierpoetry (dot) com.
Editor in Chief
Megan Kim // megan (@) frontierpoetry (dot) com // @megpieinflight
Guest Editors
Chaun Ballard
Heathen Derr // @cuvaj_se
Joanna Acevedo
J. P. Dancing Bear // @jpdancingbear
Natasha Rao // @nattyrao
Saba Keramati // @sabzi_k
Sofia Fey // @sofiafeycreates
Readers (& Amazing Poets)
Abu Bakr Sadiq, Abdulkareem Abdulkareem, Anna Binkovitz, Ash Good, Ben Pinkard, Cara Waterfall, Dylan Gilbert, E.J. Cousins, Frank Ricaurte, Jessica Hudson, Julio Cesar Diaz, Katherine Parsons, Lucy Hayes, Maya Pemble, Robin Arble, Stephen Zavitsanos, Tamara Raidt, Chloe Xiang
Founders
Josh Roark // josh (@) frontierpoetry (dot) com // @joshuaroarkpoet
Kim Winternheimer // @kwintern
General Inquiries
Please check our FAQ page which answers most questions regarding submissions, or reach out to contact (@) frontier poetry (dot) com.
Definition
the extreme limit of understanding or achievement in a particular area.
Synonyms
brink, boundary, borderland.
Frontier Poetry
a quality home for new poets.