The Hermit Crab Challenge / 10 DAYS ONLY!

Hermit Crab Challenge

September 15–25, 2024 

$800 Awarded

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:

1. What is your earliest memory of physical injury?
2. If you could be any animal, living or extinct, what would it be and why?
3. Why is the narrator thinking of his childhood in this passage?
4. 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.

Guidelines:  

• This challenge will open on September 15 and close on September 25, 2024.
• We will have three winners chosen by our editorial staff. The first-place winner will receive $500, with the second- and third-place winners receiving $200 and $100, respectively.
• Submissions are open to new and emerging writers (that is, for this challenge, poets with no more than one full-length published work forthcoming at the time of submission).
• Do not include any identifying information in the body of your document.
• Send up to three poems per submission. Simply, all three poems must be hermit crabs.
• Please submit previously unpublished poems only.
• We welcome simultaneous submissions, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
• You may submit multiple times, but each submission (of up to three hermit crab poems) requires a separate $15 fee.
• Please provide a brief cover letter that includes a short, third-person bio with your publication history, as well as any applicable content warnings to safeguard our reading staff.
• Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing primarily in English. Code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed. 
• If you haven’t already, please verify your email address with Submittable for more consistent communication.
• We will not accept AI-generated work for this challenge. Such work will be automatically disqualified.
• If you have any questions, please visit our FAQ page first. If you don’t find the answer to your question, you can send an email to contact (at) frontierpoetry (dot) com. 

Editorial Feedback Option:

This option costs $59 and will provide you with two pages of detailed and actionable feedback on one poem in your submission, including suggestions for future submissions. The $149 option will provide you with three letters from three different editors. Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and all are astute and professional poets. Please note, the time frame for editorial letters is 8–12 weeks from the close of the challenge.