Past Awards

You can find our current and future award opportunities here.

Ode on a Grecian Vacation Challenge

This contest is now closed.

Midwinter is hard for all of us. We have to return to work after the holidays and it’s still cold, windy, and maybe even snowing, depending on where you live in the world. Maybe you’re lucky and you have vacation days, but maybe you don’t, and you’re just daydreaming of warmer seasons, with all the beach trips, sunshine, and summer flings you can imagine as you stare at the walls of your cubicle or the palm trees you’ve added as the lock screen of your phone. It’s easy to fall prey to the negativity that surrounds us when the end of winter feels so far away, so we at Frontier are giving you a little push.

For this ten-day challenge, we want to see your odes—if you need a brushup, odes are poems that praise or celebrate something, anything, that is good, or that you feel is worth a little good karma. Your actual Grecian vacation might be a fantasy, but there are probably lots of other good things you’d like to give a little extra love, and we want to read all about them.

Everyone knows Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” but here are some more modern examples if you’re looking for inspiration:

“Ode to Fetty Wap (written after strip club)” | The Poetry Foundation

“Ode to the Electric Fish that Eat Only the…” | The Poetry Foundation

“Ode to Autocorrect” | The Poetry Foundation

2025 Winner

Coming Summer 2025

Hermit Crab Challenge

This contest is now closed.

Frontier Poetry is challenging you to write and submit something a little different this fall. We want your best hermit crab poem. What in the world is a hermit crab poem, you ask? Well, it’s a poem that takes the form of an already existing form. Think recipes, glossaries, indexes, tests, table of contents, et cetera. How can you transform something that already exists and make it poetically charged, impactful, and evocative?

Here’s an excerpt from an example, “Index” by Paul Violi:

Hudney, Sutej IX, X, XI, 7, 9, 25, 58, 60, 61, 64

Plates 5,10, 15

Childhood 70, 71

Education 78, 79, 80

Early relationship with family 84

Enters academy, honors 84

Arrest and bewilderment 85

Formation of spatial theories 90

“Romance of Ardoy, The” 92

Second arrest 93

Early voyages, life in the Pyrenees 95

Marriage 95 [...]

Violi has clearly taken the form of an actual index you would find in a book and turned it into a poem, utilizing page numbers and everything. However, instead of using the expected alphabetical order, Violi uses a creative chronological order, with page numbers as indicators of time. Learn more about Violi’s writing process for this hermit crab poem here.

Or take a look at another example excerpt from Charles Jensen’s limited collection, Story Problems, a book of poems that are set in the style of a reading comprehension exam:

27. THE PROGNOSIS WAS NEVER GOOD

I never envied my mother more than when I saw her liberated from her own expectations, when she was terminal. I remember as a child thinking she was perfect, then thinking she was flawed when I’d grown out of it. I sprained my ankle when I was three—how is not important. But for weeks after she had to carry me everywhere, plopped on her hip. I was a miserable kid. I think that’s why we loved each other.

Quiz on this section:

What is your earliest memory of physical injury?
If you could be any animal, living or extinct, what would it be and why?
Why is the narrator thinking of his childhood in this passage?
Why does regret taste like vinegar?

For this challenge, we may be focusing on the innovative nature of your poetry taking on an already existing form, but we are still seeking substance, emotion, and truth. That being said, there is no specific theme or subject requirements for this challenge—the sole focus is on the preexisting form and how you can make it poetry.

2024 Winners:

1st Place: Joshua Lavender, with "ni·loo (a personal definition)"

2nd Place: Eliza Gilbert, with "Mad Lib"

3rd Place: Steven C. Wright, with "The Timesick Poet"

The 2024 Portrait Prize

This contest is now closed.

Maybe you’ve seen her. We don’t know her real name—we just know her as “The Mona Lisa.” How often do we really think about the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” outside of the confines of Vermeer’s iconic painting? Choose your favorite portrait, from photographs and paintings to that excellent selfie you took on vacation four and a half years ago—and think: how do all of these images express the emotion and history shared between artist and subject?

Frontier Poetry wants your portrait poems—not just your portraits, but portraits of everyone who matters to you, from your beloved pets to your best friend from high school who you don’t talk to anymore, avoiding eye contact when you pass in the aisles at the grocery store. Of course, we want to see your self-portraits, but we also want to see how you depict your loved ones (and maybe even your enemies). Show us the joy, and show us the pain. The candid shots you took with your Polaroid camera, the yearbook photos, your older brother’s expired driver’s license you used as a fake ID in college that sorta, kinda, looked like you. Memory, urgency, history, narrative, specificity. We want to know The Mona Lisa’s name—we want to know everything about her. Put it all in the poems. Get it on the page.

Chen Chen’s “Self-Portrait as So Much Potential,” is an excellent example of the way that the self-portrait form can be used to explore the different aspects of the self. Chen puts himself in context with his mother’s expectations, and when he describes himself, he sees his true self, rather than the projection of his mother’s aspiration.

I am not the heterosexual neat freak my mother raised me to be.

I am a gay sipper, & my mother has placed what’s left of her hope on my brothers.

Chen’s realization of his mother’s disappointment might be hard to admit, but he uses humor in order to create this self portrait, and this allows him to be honest with himself. This balance of dark and light is where many portrait poems find success. A good portrait depicts its subject as truthfully as possible. If you are struggling to find inspiration, this poem by Diane Seuss, this poem by Eduardo C. Corral, or this poem by Danez Smith can all work as model texts. You can find some exercises to help you get started here.

For this contest we will be awarding our first-place winner $3,500 and our second- and third-place winners $300 and $200, respectively. Our guest judge for this contest is Omotara James. The contest will be open from October 15 to December 15, 2024, and the winners will be selected and published in early to mid-spring of 2025.

About Our Judge:

Omotara James is the author of the debut poetry collection, Song of My Softening (Alice James Books, 2024), featured by NPR’s Morning Edition and The Washington Post’s Book Club. Her chapbook, Daughter Tongue, was selected by the African Poetry Book Fund for inclusion in the 2018 edition of New Generation African Poets. James is the recipient of the 2023 J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from the Poetry Foundation, as well as a 2019 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize. Her work has received support from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Cave Canem Foundation, Lambda Literary, and elsewhere. Widely anthologized, her poetry appears in the most recent Best American Poetry series. Critically acclaimed poet and bestselling author Idra Novey, hails James as “one of the defining poets of her generation.” Omotara James writes, teaches, and edits in New York City.

What Our Judge Is Looking For:

Be daring. Maya Angelou said, “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.”The ekphrastic poem is where the empathy of the artist, the empathy of the speaker and the empathy of the reader combine in service of transformation.Dare to make startling and disparate connections. The poem is an invitation to witness.The art of looking elevates the poetics of the ekphrastic. I'm looking for poems that transcend the description of art. Allow these poems to speak from a place of knowing. Transgress the original gaze of the artist. Allow the container of your poem to frameyourgaze. Subversive poems are welcome. Praise poems and odes are welcome. Bring your prose poems, your hybrid texts, your traditional forms. Allow your urgency, your language to ring with the interiority of the speaker. Boldly look into yourself so that the page may be bolder for it,

2025 Winner

Coming Spring 2025

The 2024 Debut Chapbook Prize

This contest is now closed.

At Frontier Poetry, our mission is to create a space for new and emerging poets to have their voice heard. One way we are aiming to uphold this mission is through our Debut Chapbook Contest. This contest is an opportunity for emerging poets to submit their unpublished chapbook or manuscript of up to thirty pages of poetry. We are excited to read through your wonderful contemplations, nuances, emotions, and truths. The way we see it, your poetry is like a puzzle and we look forward to seeing how you put the pieces together. All kinds of poetry are welcome; we set no formal or aesthetic requirements, and we invite manuscripts that still need polishing. Please follow the guidelines below. The contest is open from July 1, 2024, until September 1, 2024, and the winners will be announced sometime in late fall or early winter and published fall of 2025. The winner will receive $2,000 and publication, which includes a free, downloadable digital chapbook on our website, fifty physical author copies to share and sell, and the option to enable drop-shipping sales at Amazon, Bookshop.org, and Barnes & Noble, earning 50% royalties on your chapbook. Additionally, tens of thousands of readers, editors, and magazines will receive chapbook access through our newsletter. We aim for this award to be a springboard for your poetic career. Guest Judge Nancy Miller Gomez will select the winner this year from ten finalists curated by our editorial team.

About the Guest Judge:

Nancy Miller Gomez’s first full-length collection Inconsolable Objects is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2024. She is the author of the chapbook, Punishment (Rattle Chapbook Series), a collection of poems and essays about her experience teaching in prisons and jails. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, The Adroit Journal, TriQuarterly, New Ohio Review, Shenandoah, River Styx, Waxwing, Plume, The Rumpus, Rattle, The Massachusetts Review, American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She received a special mention in the 2023 Pushcart Prize Anthology. She co-founded, with Ellen Bass, an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Salinas Valley State Prison, the Santa Cruz County Jails, and the Juvenile Hall. She has a BA from the University of California, San Diego, received her JD from the University of San Diego, and obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Pacific University. She lives with her family in Santa Cruz, California.

What Our Judge is Looking For:

I love chapbooks that take me on a narrative, thematic, or emotional journey, but I also love a mixtape of poems that pulse and push off from one another in ways that create a rich experience for the reader. I love when poems, polished into little gems, bump against poems that are mouthy and wild. I love poems that sound good when read out loud; poems that are rhythmic and gut-punchy yet still stylistically elegant; poems that use language in unexpected and fresh ways; poems that pivot and turn and buck and circle, that misbehave and don’t care what anyone thinks. I love poems that refuse to get tied into bows, or that give me the finger on their way out the door. I love a poem that opens a window, a poem that changes how I see the world so after I’ve read it everything is different.

If there isn’t a theme, thread, or narrative arc, what is holding the poems together? Do they expand or complicate the meaning of the other poems in the collection? If they don’t get along, is their conflict effectively stage-managed or is it out of control, and to what effect? If you’ve let poems sneak past the velvet rope because they’re beautiful, will they contribute to the whole or just stand there and strike a pose?

Most importantly, I love a collection that reveals emotional truths. I want to feel the poet behind the poems. I want a sense of a distinct self that has something urgent to say. I want the poems to feel so embodied that I come away feeling connected to another human. Because ultimately that is the work of a successful chapbook—to connect us, to make us feel seen and heard and less alone in this world.

2024 Winner

coming soon

The 2024 Frontier Open

This contest is now closed.

In our pursuit to celebrate the outstanding poets of our present times, Frontier Poetry annually hosts a prize for all poets, regardless of publication history. We invite you to send your best work to the Frontier OPEN, our biggest prize of the year! The winning poem will be awarded $5,000 and publication.

In addition to the winner, nine finalists will also receive an award of $100 each with publication. The Frontier Poetry editorial team will work together to select winners and finalists for this contest.

While we primarily serve as a platform for new and emerging writers, the OPEN is meant to support and elevate the poetry community as a whole. Every year, we look forward to this prize, for which emerging and established poets are considered in equal measure and as a result are often published side by side in Frontier Poetry. We’re excited to read your work! The contest is open from May 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024.

2024 Winners

First Place Winner: Marianne Kunkel, "To the Man who Hugged Me after I Rear-ended Him"

Finalists:

Tija Tippett, “Dekopon”

Imani Cezanne,, ” I found this poem in Elva’s kitchen”

Sighle Meehan, “half-doors, bolted and broken”

Nicole Santalucia, “A Last Look at Merwin, Stevens, and Williams”

Kate DeLay, “Baby Talk”

Robin Wang, “water memory”

Chennelle Channer, “Talkin with my hands, these ain’t gang signs”

Lee Pelletier, “I wanna write a poem where Plato fights Zarathustra”

Justin Rigamonti, “Failure”

The Longlist:

Jonathan Patrick

Julia Liu

Bukola Badejo

Rory Dreyfus

Haley Thomas

Indrani Perera

Kerri Davis

Elezanbee Vue

Lisa Majaj’

Folasade Adesanya

Kyle Okeke

Miguel Eichelberger

Lynne Schimdt

Majda Gama

Kate Marshall Flaherty

Magdalena Arias Vasquez

James Reeder

Ava Camargo

Veronique Beguin

Ela K

Will Hemmer

Holly Zhou

Mark Minton

2024 Nature & Place Prize

This contest is now closed.

In our pursuit of gentleness, nostalgia, and a reimagining of “home,” Frontier Poetry is reviving the Nature & Place Prize. In her poem “Drowning Creek,” Ada Limón takes us into the countryside, “Past the strip malls and the power plants, / out of the holler, past Gun Bottom Road / and Brassfield and before Red Lick Creek, / there’s a stream called Drowning Creek….” On her journey, she has the strong urge to stop the car and observe the kingfisher perched on the transmission wire “eyeing the creek / for crayfish, tadpoles, and minnows.” She has aptly combined the urge to be in communion with nature, with the visceral landscape of place observed from the loneliness of a car ride. In this same vein, we invite you to submit work to the 2024 Nature & Place Prize.

We’re looking for poems rich and robust in language, technique, and form that pay homage to the natural world and all of the small marvels that occur in nature. We’re also interested in poems that observe geography and the landscape of home. Frontier Poetry warmly encourages poets of all backgrounds, identities, and ethnicities to enter. The first-place winner will receive $3,000 and publication. Second- and third-place winners will receive $300 and $200 respectively, as well as publication. All shortlisted writers will also be considered for paid publication in New Voices.

About our Judge:

Flower Conroy is a LGBTQIA+ artist, NEA and MacDowell Fellow, and former Key West Poet Laureate. Conroy’s books include Snake Breaking Medusa Disorder (winner of the Stevens Manuscript Prize), A Sentimental Hairpin (Eric Hoffer Finalist), and Greenest Grass (winner of the Blue Lynx Poetry prize). Her work has appeared/is forthcoming in New England Review, American Literary Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. Currently she is curating a series of Ephemeral Altars that celebrate poetry collections through assemblage art.

2024 Winners

First Place Winner:

Zachary Scalzo, "Sometimes—there’s God—so quickly."

Second Place Winner:

Kiyoko Reidy, "Cocke County"

Third Place Winner:

Rebekah Sankey, "The Pond, Early Spring"

The Finalists:

Chris Dahl
Courtney DuChene
Jayne Marek
Dagwood Leach
Christian Paulisich
R Rice
Sneha Subramanian Kanta

The Longlist:

Alisha Brown
Caspar Bryant
Mac Chamberlain
Anthony Conover
J Delyane Ryms
Jane Dickerson
Ben Dickey
Nathan Erwin
Penina Finger
Jennifer Handy
Celia Lawren
Aline Mello
Jennifer Michael
Gail Newman
Jaime Paterson
Serghei Reazantev
Patricia Smith
Bridget Webster

“(Not) In Love” Tanka Challenge

This contest is now closed.

The month of February brings a certain holiday some gush over, and some, well, don’t. Love is a complexity that consumes, transfigures, and even derails. How do you push back against love? How do you dwell in the nuances of love, especially when it is not the joyous, lush experience so often presented to us? What do you do when you are (not) in love?

Here at Frontier, we are moved by the raw ache of the absence of love in Sharon Olds’s Stag’s Leap (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012)—a collection of poetry, split into seasons, detailing the pre- and post-feelings of an unexpected divorce. In her poem, “Unspeakable,” we’re particularly drawn to these opening lines:

Now I come to look at love
in a new way, now that I know I’m not
standing in its light. I want to ask my
almost-no-longer husband what it’s like to not
love, but he does not want to talk about it,
he wants a stillness at the end of it.
And sometimes I feel as if, already,
I am not here-to stand in his thirty-year
sight, and not in love’s sight […]

For this February 2024 (Not) in Love Challenge, we invite you to share your most vulnerable work on the topic at hand, but in the form of a tanka. A tanka is one of the oldest Japanese forms of poetry, similar to a haiku and derived from waka, another form of Japanese verse. The tanka is a thirty one-syllable verse in the form of a five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count, sometimes with three “upper” lines and two “lower” lines. The tanka is a fascinating poetic form because its constraint requires the most concise honesty of its writer. Read more about the tanka here, and then try your hand at the form. We can’t wait to read your latest work! The first-place winner will receive $500, with the second- and third-place winners receiving $200 and $100, respectively. This contest is judged by the editors.

And in the meantime—

Cheers to (not) being in love.

2024 Winners

First Place Winner:

Diana Tokaji, "Physics Lesson: How a Girl Stores Power"

Second Place Winner:

Jonathan Carroll, "I Was Once"

Third Place Winner:

Rina Malagayo Alluri, "Seeds of Sorrow"

The Finalists:

Rebecca Bridge
Anne Calajoe
Alexander Groff
Faith Kearns
Sammy Lê
Sam Sobel
Sherry Stratton

The Longlist:

Jackson Benson
Andrea Breen
Lindsey Brown
Colin Cutler
Kali Dudley
Robin Gabbert
Angela Januzzi
Kat Karoly
Sarah Key
Allegra Keys
Anicca Liu
Ellen Lutnick
Lucinda MacKethan
John Maher
Megan Rilkoff
Cintia Santana
Samantha Silvestri
Jonah Valdez
Stella Wong

2023 Ekphrastic Poetry Prize

This contest is now closed.

Ekphrasis comes from “description” in Greek. Ekphrastic poems seek to vibrantly describe, interpret, or converse with a visual scene or moment, usually a work of art. They often are about the speaker’s encounter with the art, and how viewing or experiencing it has impacted them.

Are you haunted by a painting that you encountered online, or a sculpture that you stood transfixed before in a museum? Some more contemporary interpretations of ekphrasis can allude to television, cinema, or even music. Is there a specific piece of media that has affected you profoundly? If so—

From December 1, 2023, to January 28, 2024, submit poems that are ekphrastic in some way, that engage dynamically with the art of those around you. The winning poet will receive $3,000 as well as publication. The second- and third-place winners will receive $300 and $200 respectively, as well as publication. Finalists will also be considered for publication!

About Our Judge:

Steve Bellin-Oka’s first book of poems, Instructions for Seeing a Ghost (2020), won the Vassar Miller Prize from the University of North Texas Press. He is also the author of four chapbooks, including Tell Me Exactly What You Saw and What You Think It Means (2021), winner of the Blue Mountain Review LGBQT+ Poetry Prize. He has been awarded fellowships from the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the National Parks Arts Foundation. He has taught poetry writing and literature at the University of Mississippi, the University of Missouri–St. Louis, and Eastern New Mexico University. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, he now lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Wyoming Seminary.

Steve Bellin-Oka will select the winner from ten finalists curated by the editorial team. What is he looking for specifically? In his own words:

"I’m honored to be this year’s judge for Frontier’s Ekphrastic Poetry Prize and am looking forward to reading your work. While ekphrastic poetry traditionally has been written about visual art, and I’m excited to read poems that respond to paintings and sculpture, I’m also looking forward to reading poems that relate to pop music, street art, film, monuments, architecture—anything that defines contemporary “culture.” I love ekphrastic poems that connect art with real life and ask questions about how art helps us to make sense of the world around us. I love poems of any form—traditional, contemporary, or invented. Burn me with your imagery and figurative language. Make me want to experience both your poem and the work of art you’re writing about over and over again."

2023 WINNERS

First Place Winner:

Ryan Varadi, "Still Life, Round"

Second Place Winner:

Olga Maslova, "Tokyo Prepartum"

Third Place Winner:

Apollo Beaber, "Ode to Joe Brainard"

The Finalists:

Folasade Adesanya
Raza Ayoob
Roxanne Cardona
Heidi Seaborn
Jane Shoenfeld
Liz Sutherland
Ali Wood

The Longlist:

Bader AlAwadhi
Alison Braid
Michelle Brock
Herbert Clark
Bonnie Jill Emanuel
Tia Hudson
Luisa Igloria
Brian T. Johnson
E. W. I. Johnson
Jessica Lee
Barbara MacKay
patricia heisser métoyer
Jennifer Metsker
Esther Omole
Ayinde Ricco
JoAnna Scandiffio
Hunt Scarritt
Daniel Schonning
Annie Schumacher
Phia Spencer
Brian Volck
Elinor Ann Walker

2023 Award for New Poets

This contest is now closed.

This fall, we’re delighted to bring back our Award for New Poets! We’re looking to uplift an up-and-coming poet, with no more than one full-length collection forthcoming or published at the time of submission. We award $3,000 for the winning poem, selected by our guest judge. Our second- and third-place winners receive $300 and $200, respectively. All three winners will be published.

Our judge this year is torrin a. greathouse, whose “Burning Haibun” Frontier Poetry first published in 2017, and who is now an award-winning poet and professor. We love seeing a poet’s origins and the many ways they move and grow in their work, and this award is an opportunity for us to help you along that path! Send us your innovative poems, your passion projects, the work you can’t wait for the world to share in!

About Our Judge:

torrin a. greathouse is a transgender cripple-punk poet and essayist. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. Their work has been featured in Poetry Magazine, The Rumpus, the New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and The Kenyon Review. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Effing Foundation for Sex Positivity, Zoeglossia, the Ragdale Foundation, and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. They are the author of Wound from the Mouth of a Wound (Milkweed Editions, 2020), winner of the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and DEED (Wesleyan University Press, 2024). She teaches at the Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University.

2023 WINNERS

First Place Winner:

Ira Goga, "Twelve Thousand Pounds of Salt"

Second Place Winner:

Yingqi Sally Lu, "Self-Portrait as Apples to Apples"

Third Place Winner:

Yola Gómez, "Free Museum Day"

The Finalists:

Raza Ayoob
J.W. Carroll
Hailey Gross
Eva Haas
Carling McManus
Katie Nelson
Brit Siler Sinnott

The Longlist:

AJ Baumel
Matthew Buxton
Matthew Church
Nain Chrisopherson
Gray Davidson Carroll
Sophie Farthing
Melissa Higley
Billy Judd
KB Kinkel
Isabella Martinez
Muhammed Olowonjoyin
Arnecia Patterson
Erin Pinkham
Caroline Schmidt
Cheryl Solver-Linett
Timothy Stobierski
Chloe Tsolakoglou
Wendy Watkins
Churan Xu

The 2023 Roots & Roads Contest

Judged by Craig Santos Perez.

2023 WINNERS

First Place Winner

Meriem Evangeline, "Ancestry Told Through Prophecy"

Second Place Winner

Yiskah Rosenfeld, "On Becoming a Woman"

Third Place Winner

Edgar Morales, "Motherland"

2023 Runners-Up

Nasim Asgari

Bertha Crombet

Emma Jaques

Rafiat Lamidi

S.J. Pearce

Linda Ravenswood

2023 Finalists

Jessica Abughattas

Aliyah Blattner

Matthew Buxton

Elaine Desmond

Tricia Elliott

Kristy Gallegos

Sera Jonas Jakob

MAXWELL MCDONOUGH

Sarah Micek

Hannah Oberman-Breindel

Noel Quiñones

Ayesha Raees

Janet Ruth

Samira Sadeque

Darius Simpson

Sneha Subramanian Kanta

Caitlin Villacrusis

Constant Williams

The 2023 Frontier OPEN

2023 WINNERS

MaKshya Tolbert, “Autobiography of not a horse”

2023 Finalists

Yolanda J. Franklin, “Pecola Breedlove Watches Zora Tether in Jordan Peele’s US then Nina Simone Sings in the Background”

Zachariah Claypole White, “Today, while reading the definition of OCD”

Amy Wolstenholme, “The Ballad of Aisle Three”

Georgio Russell, “Halved Sonnets: A Diagram of Distances”

Chace Zachery Morris, “Hex as Language of The Unheard”

Sara Elkamel, “The Seamstress”

2023 Longlist

.CHISARAOKWU.
A.D. Lauren-Abunassar
Abigail Mengesha
Adedayo Agarau
AE Hines
Ajibola Tolase
Alexis Williams
Alyssa Salzberg
Annie Quigley
Callie Jennings
Cocoa Williams
Diya Abaas
Emma Jane Sullivan
Georgio Russell
Ivy Terrisa
Jennifer Shikes Haines
Katie Dozier (KHD)
Mackenzie Schubert Polonyi Donnelly
Maria Nazos
Miriam Akervall
Nicole Adabunu
Nicolette Ratz
Patricia Y. Ikeda
Sara Martin
Sollace Mitchell
Sophie Mills
Tariq Malik
Teri Vela
Ty Holter
Weijia Pan
Ziyi Yan

The 2023 Breakthrough Chapbook Contest

Here at Frontier, our digital chapbook contest is one of the highlights of our year. This contest is an opportunity to not only lean into the poetic exploration we encourage in all of our submissions, but also to take us on an extended venture into the terrain of your work, in up to thirty pages of poems. We want to see your breakthrough moments, your obsessions, the journey of your voice. All kinds of poetry are welcome; we set no formal or aesthetic requirements, and we invite manuscripts that still need polishing.

The winner will receive $2,000 and publication, which includes a free, downloadable digital chapbook on our website, fifty physical author copies to share and sell, and the option to enable drop-shipping sales on your chapbook. Additionally, tens of thousands of readers, editors, and magazines will receive chapbook access through our newsletter. This audience can be a formative springboard for your poetic career!

Our guest judge, Kemi Alabi, will select the winner this year from ten finalists curated by our editorial team.

About Our Judge:

Kemi Alabi is the author of Against Heaven (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award. The collection was a Kate Tufts Discovery Award finalist, Chicago Review of Books Award winner, and one of New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2022. Alabi’s poems appear in The Atlantic, The Nation, Poetry, Boston Review, and Best New Poets. A Periplus Collective mentor, Alabi has received fellowships from MacDowell, Civitella Ranieri, and elsewhere. As Head of Creativity & Impact of the gender justice organization Forward Together, Alabi builds cultural power with organizers and artists. They’re coeditor of The Echoing Ida Collection (Feminist Press, 2021), an anthology of Black reproductive justice writing. Born in Wisconsin on a Sunday in July, they now live in Chicago, IL. Find Kemi on Twitter @kemiaalabi.

2023 WINNERS

Kathryn Hargett-Hsu, "The Skin is a Warm Coat"

2023 Runners Up

Nicole Adabunu, "For Eve, Which Means Life. Means Animal."

Ryan Black, "You Were Never Lovelier"

Kirun Kapur, "The Hunt of the Unicorn"

Nicole Lachat, "The Red We Silk"

Emily Lake Hansen, "On Fire for Decades"

Weijia Pan, "Peppered Path"

Polley Poer, "Creation Delay"

Aimee Seu, "Nepenthe Radiant"

Malik Thompson, "incision"

2023 Finalists

Naomi Azriel

Jessica Ballen

Aida Bardissi

Mihir Bellamkonda

Ann-Marie Blanchard

Wendy Bourgeois

Mary Brownell

Matthew Buxton

Ellara Chumashkaeva

Elizabeth Coleman

Kym Cunningham

Maria Esquinca

Stacy Forbes

Tatiana Gómez

Linnea Harper

Javeria Hasnain

Aiden Heung

Erik Jonah

Alyson Kissner

Hannah Lee

Mary MacGowan

Tara Mesalik MacMahon

Henry Mills

Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi

Carol Park

Lucie Pereira

Isa Pickett

Julie Runacres

Wendy Scher

Danie Shokoohi

Kashiana Singh

Kaitlyn Snodgrass

Ojo Taiye

The 2023 Hurt & Healing Prize

Dear poets, poetry, to me, has always been about growth, about understanding myself and others through the act of writing feelings and memories and wounds and relationships onto that blank page.

Kaveh Akbar, in Morning Prayer with the Rat King, wrote: "I imagine the sea’s made of actual / tears this would explain the salt think of all / the disconsolate toddlers weeping right now into / the earth the tears must go somewhere."

The tears must go somewhere. This new year, we are launching with a Hurt and Healing Prize. Send us your tears, your wounds poked and prodded and brushed gently. Give us the gift of that special hope poetry alone seems to offer so well: seeing our pain shared in others, in their own mysterious privacy, somehow makes every pain easier to bear. Easier to heal.

The first place winner will receive $3000 + publication. Second and third place winners will receive $300 and $200 respectively, as well as publication.

Guest Judge Andrés Cerpa is the author of Bicycle in a Ransacked City: An Elegy, and The Vault from Alice James Books. A recipient of fellowships from McDowell and Canto Mundo, his work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Puerto Rico en mi Corazón, The Breakbeat Poets Vol 4: LatiNext, The Nation + elsewhere. He holds degrees from the University of Delaware and Rutgers University Newark.

2023 WINNERS

Eliza Gilbert, "My Father Postpones His Appearance on Wheel of Fortune While I'm in Rehab"

2023 Runners Up

Geramee Hensley, "Ode to My Family in Key of Friend Chicken & Fried Rice"

Sara Elkamel, "Saturday"

2023 Finalists

Christopher Greggs
Dalia Elhassan
Grace Ezra
Heather Nagami
Lisa Kerr
Mia Willis
Shana Ross

The 2022 Global Poetry Prize

The guest judges:

Tarfia Faizullah, for the region of South Asia

Saddiq Dzukogi, for the region of Africa

Aria Aber, for the region of Europe

JP Dancing Bear, for the region of North America

2022 WINNERS

South Asia

Iqra Khan, "Ars Poetica: Kohinoor (Mountain of Light)"

Africa

Abigail Mengesha, "Map"

Europe

Carlos A. Pittella, "The death of Jean Charles de Menezes"

North America

Javier Sandoval, "Requiem for the Ungoverned"

2022 Finalists

South Asia

Alycia Pirmohamed

Ari Mokdad

Karan Kapoor

Marco Yan

Neha Maqsood

Tariq Malik

Teja Sudhakar

Yamini Pathak

Zilka Joseph

Africa

Ajibola Tolase

Bayo Aderoju

Delight Chinenye Ejiaka

Esinam Bediako

Jamila Osman

Jarred Thompson

Samuel Ugbechie

Sara Elkamel

Thomas Kneeland

Europe

Alice White

Chloe Tsolakoglou

emet ezell

Milica Mijatovic

Milla van der Have

S K Grout

Swati Sudarsan

Vasiliki Albedo

North America

Anaïs Deal-Márquez

Bayowa Ayomide

Híl Davis

Jed Meyers

Nicole Adabunu

Sara Rivera

Serena Chopra

Sophia Hall

Stella Wong

The 2022 Nature & Place Prize

2022 WINNER

Anna Newman, “de arena & calce or: of sand & quicklime or: hydrangeas”

2022 Runners Up

Dan Barton, "River Eclogue: Narcissus & Echo at the Bridge"

Noel Quiñones, "How to Color Mami"

2022 Finalists

Carling McManus

Jessica Poli

JP Grasser

Kinsale Drake

Luisa Igloria

Sebastian Merrill

torrin a. greathouse

The 2022 Frontier OPEN

2022 WINNER of the $5000 Prize

Yi Wei, "Diction"

2022 Finalists

Adedayo Agarau, "Lilac"

Amy Wang, "autumn homecomings"

Billie R. Tadros, “Because ‘I do take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife’ is a performative utterance, but so is ‘I now pronounce you—”

Chelsea Dingman, "Mass (a reverse sestina)"

Georgio Russell, "Portrait of My Arrival as Grief"

Grace MacNair, "Trophic Level/Ode to a Roadkill Doe"

jason b. crawford, "Impact of Return"

Kiki Nicole, "BORN, SICK"

Shakeema Smalls, "Watermelon Woman"

The 2022 Frontier Digital Chapbook Contest

2022 Honorable Mentions

Sera Gamble, Once Upon A Time We Never Washed Our Hands
Sean Cho A., Subjectivity Test
Meghan Dahn, Let Nest

2022 Finalists

Jasmine An, Counterpoint
Colin Bailes, Assemblage after the Wreck
Caleb Nichols, Soft Animal Oft Anima
Wylde Parsley, the anonym gospels
Trace DePass, Sonic Gnostics’
teri elam, Forever We

The 2022 New Voices Contest

2022 WINNER

Donte Collins, "Small and Personal"

2022 Runner Ups

Ae Hee Lee, "Anything You Can Find in the World You Can Find in the Body"

Megan Kim, "My Name Means Pearl—"

2022 Finalists

Aris Kian

donia salem harhoor

Khaya Osborne

Mag Gabbert

Natasha Rao

Pendambaye Smith

Tamara Raidt

The 2021 Industry Prize

2021 WINNER

Eduardo Martinez-Leyva, “Don’t Look Back, Little Halo”

2021 Runner Ups

Michelle Peñaloza, “I Tell My Mother I Don’t Think Trying To Get Pregnant During a Pandemic is Good Idea”
Anders Villani, “Poison”

2021 Finalists

Sara Elkamel
Laura Joyce-Hubbard
Josephine Blair Cipriano
Jeff Whitney
Danie Shokoohi
Camille McDaniel
Bola Opaleke

The 2021 Frontier Award for New Poets

2021 WINNER

Chibuihe Obi Achimba, “a sonnet: a slaughter field”

2021 Runner Ups

Samuel Piccone, “Herma”

Emily Hyland, “Ashes Arts and Crafts”

2021 Finalists

Christina Miles
Julia Anna Morrison
Kimberly Nguyen
Mag Gabbert
Maria Gregorio
Shannan Mann
Yvette Siegert

The 2021 Frontier OPEN

2021 WINNER of the $5000 Prize

Chaun Ballard

2021 Finalists

Sneha Subramanian Kanta
Christiane Jacox
Kelly Weber
Emma De Lisle
Natalie Dunn
Kimberly Nguyen
Raphael Jenkins
Heidi Seaborn
Shaina Jones

The 2021 Frontier Digital Chapbook Contest

Guest Judge: Kazim Ali

2021 WINNER

Abby Johnson, Opportunity Cost

2021 Finalists

Will Russo, Dreamsoak
Ari Gtz Scz, Weather Tomorrow
K.D. Harryman, Alprazoland
Matthew Gellman, Night Logic
Caroline Chavatel, Issuance
Shawn Hoo, Of the Florids
Andre Hoilette, Cothilda, a flamewoman
Jeff Whitney, Thirteen Stories
Simon Shieh, Every Scar is an Eye

The 2021 New Voices Contest

Guest Judge: Donika Kelly

2021 WINNER

S. Kim, "Assimilamentations"

2021 Runner Ups

A.D. Lauren-Abunassar, “Abandoned Sestina”

Syd Westley, “Interlocution”

2021 Finalists

Adedayo Agarau
Bola Opaleke
Erin McCoy
féi hernandez
Grace Wagner
Josephine Blair
Kate Arden
Stephanie Chang

The 2020 Frontier OPEN

2020 WINNER

Kayleb Rae Candrilli, "A Marble Run for Another End-of-Days"

2020 Finalists

Kim Addonizio, "Cracked Logic"
Elizabeth Shvarts, "Queer American"
Itiola Jones, "Original Sin"
Taylor Byas, "An So You Want a Poem"
Taneum Bambrick, "Poem for Ellensburg"
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, "Letter to My Son"
Joshua Nguyen, "Hoarder"
Remi Recchia, "Walking with My Lover to Bury Our Dead Fish"
Sabrina San Miguel, "Teaching your Homegirl about the Root Chakra"

The 2020 Frontier Award for New Poets

Guest Judges: Paige Lewis, Camonghne Felix, and Jake Skeets.

2020 WINNER

Taylor Byas, "South Side"

2020 Runner Ups

Samantha Samakande, "ON THE THING I CANNOT EXPLAIN TO MY HUSBAND"

Nome Emeka Patrick, "The Body Walks Through Grief Toward God"

2020 Finalists

Sahar Muradi
Paola Liendo
Darius Simpson
Justin Jannise
Marvin Hodges
Iloh Onyekachi
Mag Gabbert

The 2020 Industry Prize

Guest Judges: Carmen Giménez Smith, Daniel Slager, and Peter LaBerge.

2020 WINNER

Michelle Phương Ting, "The Long Afterlife"

2020 Runner Ups

Chaun Ballard, "While I Walk, My Brother Assures My Nephew There Are Wildflowers Growing in Minneapolis"

Adedayo Agarau, “Bad Dream with My Grandmother’s Stroke”

2020 Finalists

Chelsea Bunn
Chelsea DesAutels
Jamila Osman
Marisa Tirado
Michelle Macfarlane
Michelle Peñaloza
Saúl Hernández

The 2020 Frontier Digital Chapbook Contest

Guest Judge: Carl Phillips

2020 WINNER

Frederick Speers, In the Year of Our Making & Unmaking (Coming Spring 2021!)

2020 Finalists

Ajanae Dawkins, Heirs
Nicole A. Greaves, Conventicle
Erica Charis-Molling, How We Burn
Stephanie Yue Duhem, A Witch Named
Lupita Eyde-Tucker, How to Ride a Train in the Andes
Grace Wagner-ODaniel, Halcyon Days
J’Sun Howard, Black Effigy
Dujie Tahat, BALIKBAYAN
Noʻu Revilla, letters to the gut house

2020 Antioch-Fellowship Prize

2020 WINNER

Momtaza Mehri

2020 Runner Ups

Madeleine Cravens
Joanna Ng

2020 Finalists

Despy Boutris
Jasmine L. Combs
Snigdha Koirala
Claire Kaminski
Michael Frazie
Theo LeGro
Nicholas Nichols

The 2019 Frontier OPEN

Closed November 15, 2019

2019 WINNER

“A Brief History of Mercy” by JP Grasser

2019 Finalists

Gail Entrekin
Xiao Yumi
Leyla Colpan
Jennifer Garfield
Jasmine Smith
C. Samuel Rees
Daniella Tootsie-Watson
Jed Myers
David Joez Villaverde
KT Herr

The 2019 Frontier Award for New Poets

Closed September 15, 2019

Guest judges: Ocean Vuong, Kaveh Akbar, and Eve L. Ewing.

2019 WINNER

“[X][Y]:[X][X]” by Golden

2019 Runner Ups

“THE NAMING” by Alan Semerdjian
“Lot’s Wife” by Diamond Forde

2019 Finalists

Helli Fang
Bryan Byrdlong
Lauren Ubbing
Emily Khilfeh
Chelsea Wagenaar
Chloe Honum
Alycia Pirmohamed

The 2019 Industry Prize

Guest judges: Jeff Shotts—Executive Editor of Graywolf Press, Kwame Dawes—Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner, and Sarah Gambito—Co-founder of Kundiman.

2019 WINNER

"After April Rain" by Elizabeth Oxley

2019 Runner Ups

“Inheritance” by ae hee lee
“Twelve” by Olatunde Osinaike

2019 Finalists

Christopher Louvet
Sadiqa de Meijer
Jerl Surratt
Threa Almontaser
Emily Lawson
Rachel Harkai
Samuel Rees

The 2019 Frontier Digital Chapbook Contest

Closed May 15, 2019

Guest judge: Jericho Brown.

2019 WINNER

Shadow Black by Naima Yael Tokunow

2019 Runner Ups

in spite of years of silence by Ryan Jones
A Seven in Horses by Jeff Whitney

2019 Finalists

Adela Najarro
Isabella DeSendi
Kelly Weber
Kirk Schlueter
Makmak Faunlagui
Mark Wagenaar
Simon Shieh

2019 Antioch-Fellowship Prize

2019 WINNER

Cassie Garrison (read an interview about her experience at Antioch here)

2019 Finalists

Sarah Key
Genevieve Paiement
Esther Ra
Noel Quiñones
Leila Ortiz
William Evans
Fay Dillof
Trace Howard
DePass
Elisabet Velasquez
Mick Powell
Dujie Tahat
Kaja Lucas
David Joez Villaverde

2018 Frontier Open

2018 WINNER

“Migrations” by Mark Wagenaar

2018 Runner Ups

“Expelling Venus” by Elizabeth Oxley
“Secret Hymn” by Sam Zafris

2018 Finalists

E.D. Watson
Jocelyn Williams
Korey Williams
Hillary Martin
K. Jagai
Oriana Ivy

2018 Frontier Award for New Poets

Guest judge: Victoria Chang.

2018 WINNER

“The Anorexic’s Aubade” by Kirk Schlueter

2018 Runner Ups

“Heart postpartum” by Cara Waterfall
“Self-Portrait No. 5 (Phoenix and Lullabies)” by Cynthia Manick

2018 Finalists

Hannah King
Khaty Xiong
Jacob Nelson
Meghann Plunkett
Yaccaira Salvatierra
Monica Ong
Hilda Weiss

2018 Summer Poetry Award

2018 WINNER

“Louisiana Requiem” by Heather Treseler

2018 Runner Ups

“AFTER READING DJ KHALED...” by Leila Chatti
“Singularity” by Aurora Masum-Javed

2018 Finalists

Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
Ying-Ying Zhang
Marlin Figgins
Karl Iglesias
Zilka Joseph
Tokorima Taihuringa
Samuel Wright Fairbanks

2018 Industry Prize

Guest judges: Don Share, Editor of Poetry; Nicole Sealey, Executive Director of Cave Canem; & Matthew Zapruder, Editor of Wave Books.

2018 WINNER

"Dress code for an immigration interview" by Kristin Chang

2018 Tied for Second Place

“Bosky Farm” by Gabriel Kruis
”Polyphagia” by Brian Tierney

2018 Finalists

Elizabeth Herron
Madhur Anand
Jasmine Reid
Carlos Gomez
Deborah Fried-Rubin
Inam Kang
Jessica Hincapie

2018 Digital Chapbook Contest

2018 WINNER

“How Often I Have Chosen Love” by Xiao Yue Shan

2018 Finalists

Catherine Strisik
Linette Reeman
Becky Boyle
Tanya Ko-Hong
Kristin Chang
Seema Yasmin
Nicole Stockburger
Simone Person
Seif-Eldeine Och

2017 Frontier Open

2017 WINNER

“Tim” by Tiana Clark

2017 Finalists

Chad Oness
Rachel Jorgensen
Jessica Turney
Chaun Ballard
Amanda Hawkins
Bola Opaleke
Mason Henderson
Mackenzie Whitehead-Bust
Ebony Chinn
Regina Marie

2017 Frontier Award for New Poets

Guest judge: Tyehimba Jess.

2017 WINNER

“Souvenir” by Todd Smith

2017 Runner Ups

“Love poem with a knife” by Kara Jackson
“deciduous qween IV” by Matty Layne Glasgow

2017 Honorable Mentions

“Undone” by Brionne Janae
“the neighbor’s house” by Benjamin Hertwig