2026 Winner and Runners up of the Artemesia Poetry Competition
Winner
Thea Smiley
Winning Poem: Dürer’s Melencolia Fills In a Wellbeing Questionnaire
Thea Smiley is a poet from Suffolk. She graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2012, and wrote short stories and plays until 2019, when she decided to focus solely on poetry. Her collection Guadalajara, started at this time, was shortlisted in the Live Canon collection competition 2022 and 2026.
Her work has been widely published in magazines, including Magma, Mslexia and The Rialto, and in anthologies from Renard Press, Arachne Press, and Yaffle Press, among others. She has been shortlisted for the Wells competition and Bridport Prize, and longlisted in the Rialto Nature and Place competition and the inaugural Propel Cambridge Poetry Prize.
In 2025, she was selected by the National Centre for Writing as a recipient of The Literary Consultancy’s Free Reads Scheme, she came second in the Yaffle’s Nest competition, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
This year she won second prize in the Ver Poets Open competition, and is delighted to have won first prize in the Artemesia poetry competition.
Runners Up:
Katherine Meehan
Poem: In Eclipse Season, Maybe a Dark Horse
Usha Kishore
Poem: GAZA
Many congratulations to our 2026 winners for their poems.
Artemesia 2026 Highly Commended Poems
We are delighted to announce the following poems have been Highly Commended by this year’s poetry judge, Malika Booker.
Scott Elder: The Pier
Mary Gilonne: This is a story that has no ending
Moray McGowan: Grand slam at Wadi Wimb
Erica Jane Morris: Foreshadow
Elizabeth Robinson : June Bride
Patch Layali: A Weekend of Birds and Fish
Jennifer M Phillips:Turning and Returning
The Brian Patten Memorial Prize for Love Poetry
We are thrilled and proud to be able to announce this new award which we are able to make with the kind permission of Linda Cookson, Brian’s wife. The inaugural prize goes to Joan Baxter for her poem, Six shades of Prussian blue. The poem was on Malika’s shortlist and was chosen unanimously by our panel as the outstanding love poem entered. For the future we want to encourage the writing of more poems in this genre and to contribute to Brian’s legacy as one of the twentieth century’s greatest love poets. ‘Patten composes rhapsodies and lamentations to the terrible beauty of human love’ – The Literary Review.
Our Short List 2026
We are delighted to announce the following poets and poems have been selected by Malika Booker for the short list:
Baxter, Joan. Six Shades of Prussian Blue
Boggs, Erin. Enlightenment
Carroll, Olivia. Promise, Promises
Chiselita, Doina. If I like it here
Cook, Shirley Anne. Learning Arabic
Donovan, Christian. Sourdough Mother
Elder, Scott. The Pier
Patch Layali. A weekend of birds and fish
Ewing, Blair. At the Cliffs
Johnson, Clay Franklin. Reflections by the Sea
Fitzwilliam Hall, Khadija. Holloway
Gilonne, Mary. This is a story that has no ending
Hainsworth, Bex. Rhea
Hamilton, Collette. Skimming the Sea
Job, Pam. Noah and the Birds
Job, Pam. Cressida: Heart to Heart
Jones, Estella. Ode to summer’s last fag
Jones, Estella. To the deer I hit on the way home
Kindon, Sue. Out of Order
Kirk, Tony. The Circus Act 1974
Kirk, Tony. Godshill waits for Bob Dylan 1969
Kishore, Usha. GAZA
Magee, Jessie. The Benefits of Supta Virasana
McGowan, Moray. Grand Slam at Wadi Wimb
Meehan, Katherine. In Eclipse Season, Maybe a Dark Horse
Morris, Erica Jane. Foreshadow
Phillips, JM. Turning & Returning
Phillips, JM. Evictees
Poulston, Miriam. Dying once a year
Richardson, Bill. Moher
Robinson, Elizabeth. June Bride
Sellen, Derek. Hung out to dry
ShenSutu. Resonating with the Sky
Short, David. Nihon teien (The Japanese Garden)
Smiley, Thea. Dürer’s Melencolia Fills In a Wellbeing Questionnaire
Smith Sellen, Mary Anne. The post war gardener
Spires, Victoria. In the Hide
Spires, Victoria. They are planting trees at the new Maggie’s Centre
Swanepoel, Andre. The Kookmoer’s shelves
Swanepoel, Andre. Ouma’s firebread
Totterdell, Mark. Oystercatcher
Winters, Ella B. Seasonal Affective Disorder
Wozniak, Judith. Dancers in Repose
All shortlisted poems will be published in our 2026 New Poetry Anthology later this year.
Our Long Listed poets 2026
D A Angelo, Jonathan Bludden, (Jennifer) J M Phillips, Collette Hamilton, Miriam Poulston, Andre Swanepoel, Seraphima Elianor, Mary Gilonne, Ruth Spencer, Estella Jones, Rory Smith, Joan Baxter, Thea Smiley, Erin Boggs, Sue Kindon, Blair Ewing, Max Terry Fishel, David Short, Shen Sutu, Tony Kirk, Bex Hainsworth, Pam Job, Victoria Spires, Karina Holm, Patch Layali, Anne Woolley Eyries, Judith Wozniak, Olivia Carroll, Irene Campbell, Elizabeth Robinson, Scott Elder, Terry Jones, Christian Donovan, Usha Kishore, Howell Valente, Bill Richardson , Shirley Anne Cook, Moray McGowan, Erica Jane Morris, Ella B. Winters, Jessie Magee, Bernadette Goulding, Sally Stanford, Siobhan Flynn, Leonardo Boix, Eileen Anne Gordon, Mark Totterdell, Mary Anne Smith Sellen, Khadija Fitzwilliam Hall, Doina Chiselita, Rieve Atkinson, Derek Sellen, Clay Franklin Johnson, Elle Brown, Grace Brimacombe-Rand, Emily Breeds, Christopher Moore, Andrew Beattie, Mary Mulholland, Richard Devereux, Nuala O’ Farrell, Katherine Meehan.
.
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.