Poetry Competition 2026 – Artemesia Arts

The headlines

Entries must be the original work of the author
Poems must be written in English and can be on any theme, in any poetic form or style
The competition is open to anyone over the age of 18
The competition closes on Saturday 4^thApril 2026 at midnight CET (Central European Time); any entry arriving after this date and time will not be eligible for consideration
The shortlisted poets will be informed ahead of any published results
The winner and runners-up will be advised ahead of any published results
By entering the competition, you are agreeing to your work being published in the Artemesia Arts 2026 anthology, should it be selected for publication
Results will be published in late June on the Artemesia Arts Website www.artemesia-arts.com and circulated to relevant press and media

The detail

Written in any legible font, point 12 in either single or 1.5 line spacing
Poems should be in a Word document with each poem on a new page
Poems should be a maximum of 40 lines, not counting the title or any line spaces
We prefer not to receive PDFs – if you have a concern over the formatting of your poem, please get in touch with Kate Rose at #kate rose in the subject line via artemesia.arts@gmail.com
Entries must not have been published, self-published, broadcast or posted online, including on a personal blog
Entries should not have won a prize elsewhere
Simultaneous submission is permitted, however if your poem wins a prize or is published elsewhere, please let us know as soon as possible so we can remove it from the competition
Entries will be read and judged anonymously so do not include or show your name or any other contact details on the page or pages attached with your poem(s)
The Judges decision to award a prize is final, no discussion of results will ensue
Artemesia Arts’ decision to publish is at its own discretion
No changes may be made to the poems after entry; Artemesia Arts and Mosaïque Press as editor and publisher reserve the right to make essential changes to fit the publication but will always do so in consultation with the poet.

Prizes

1st Prize £200 (two hundred pounds sterling) plus the winning poem will be published in Artemesia Arts poetry anthology 2026, published by Mosaïque Press.

Two runners up will receive £80 each (eighty pounds sterling) and the poems will be published in the 2026 anthology.

A small number of poems will also be highly commended by the judge and these poems will be published in the 2026 anthology.

A further 25 poems will be considered for publication in the Artemesia Arts Poetry Anthology 2026.

All poets included in the 2026 Anthology will receive one free copy of the final anthology.

All winners will be invited to read at the 2026 poetry@treignac poetry retreat weekend, 4 – 6 September 2026, in Treignac, Coreze, South West France.

New for 2026: Poems selected for the Artemesia annual anthology may also be considered for the Correnti Incrociate poetry-in-translation series published by Mosaïque Press in conjunction with the Universities of Salerno (Italy) and Timișoara (Romania). This is a project managed by Mosaïque Press poetry editor, John Eliot.

Entry fee

Entry is £5 (five pounds sterling) per poem
No refunds will be made under any circumstances once a poem/poems have been submitted
Please note you pay a fee per poem submitted
If there is a difference between your writer’s name and your payment fee name, please tell us in your email
If there is a difference between your email name and your writer’s name, please make sure that you tell us

Payment

By Bank transfer to: ASSOC. L’ARTEMESIA
Ref: Poetry Competition
Account number: 66120884930
IBAN (International Bank Account Number) :
FR76 1680 6099 3966 1208 8493 051
Code BIC ( Bank Identification Code ) : AGRIFRPP868

By euro cheque (euros only)
Made out to Artemesia Arts and sent to:
Kate Rose
1 Chemin des Gouttes,
Gioux
23190 La Serre Bussiere Vieille, France

By PayPal:
You can pay via PayPal even if you don’t have an account. Just click on the link and follow the instructions

Or go to your PayPal account and pay artemesia.arts@gmail.com
Please note Artemisa Arts PayPal account email is
artemesia.arts@gmail.com
Please double check before sending your fee that you have sent it to the correct email/account. If in any doubt please get in touch with us before you send you payment. There are a number of similar Artemesia accounts on PayPal, but our spelling of artemesia is very particular, it is spelt with 2 e’s and only 1 i.
Also, other accounts don’t necessarily include artemesia.arts
Artemesia Arts cannot be held responsible for fees being submitted to the wrong account due to misspelling or typos.

Sending Your Entry

By email to artemesia.arts@gmail.com

Please put Artemesia Arts Poetry Competition in the title box of your email and include the following information in the body of the email:

Name
Address
Telephone number including country code
Email address
Payment reference (PayPal/Cheque or/ Bank Acc number)
Number of poems submitted
Title of each poem

Attach a Word document with each poem (including title) appearing on a separate page
Send to: artemesia.arts@gmail.com before Saturday, 4th April 2026 at midnight CET

By post
Our preference is to receive entries via email. However, if this is really not possible, we will accept printed copies. Please send to:

Kate Rose, 1 Chemin des Gouttes, Gioux, 23190 La Serre Bussiere Vieille, France

Please include the following information:

Cover note to include:

Name
Address
Telephone number including country code
Email address
Payment reference (PayPal/Cheque or/ Bank Acc number)
Number of poems submitted
Title of each poem

2 x Word document for each poem (including title) appearing on a separate page

The team at Artemesia are delighted to announce that Malika Booker will be our judge for the 2026 Poetry Competition.

Photo credit: Josimar Senior Black Writers’ Guild

Malika is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (A writer’s collective). The Anthology – Two Young, Two Black, Too Different, Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen was recently published to celebrate Malika Poetry Kitchen’s twenty-year anniversary.

Her pamphlet Breadfruit, (flippedeye, 2007) received a Poetry Society recommendation and her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection.

She is published with the Poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017). Booker and Shara McCallum recently co-edited the issue of Stand Journal curating an anthology of poems by African American, Black British, & Caribbean Women & Identifying Writers.

A Cave Canem Fellow, and inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company, Malika was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to poetry and elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow (2022). She is the first woman to win the Forward Prize for Best Single poem twice: The Little Miracles (2020) and Libation (2023).

Competition Administrator and first point of contact

Kate Rose is the competition administrator. You can contact her at #kate rose in the subject box via artemesia.arts@gmail.com

Kate is a published poet and has been placed in a number of poetry competitions. The 2026 competition will be the eighth competition she has managed.

The publisher

Mosaïque Press is a boutique bibliophile publisher passionate about books. The editors at Mosaïque love giving form to their authors’ ideas, supporting their creativity with their special blend of editorial, design and publishing experience. Their growing portfolio of poetry is published under Chapbooks by Mosaïque Press. Mosaïque Press published the Artemesia Arts anthologies, Colours of the Moon (2023), Lunar Rainbow (2024) and Sea of Serenity (2025), which include 122 poems and 99 poets. Copies of all of these chapbooks books may be found on Amazon UK, search by book name.

Poetry@Treignac 2026

Please note that we would love to see and hear winning and commended poets at poetry@treignac 2026 in Treignac, South West France. Unfortunately we are not able to cover the costs associated with the event.

This is a selected event for invited poets only and details of the event can be found elsewhere on our website.