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The Alchemy Spoon Gold Star Program Gold Star

The story of The Alchemy Spoon is borrowed from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, with the spoon representing the importance of balancing creativity and career. We encourage poets to allow the oils of creativity to fall from their spoons in exchange for the pleasure of creating and having their poetry published
The Alchemy Spoon is a platform for poetry without prejudice especially of race, gender or age. We are particularly interested to invite poems from new phase poets. These are poets who have come late to poetry, often following retirement, or a life-change.


The work of new phase poets often has stunning depth and perspective reflecting experiences accumulated from work and life. These poets might be classed among those who have been dubbed the 'lost generation of talent'. Abid Hussain, Diversity Director at the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council), says: ‘How many would-be working-class artists, artistic directors, choreographers, composers and curators decided to enter accounting, legal, medical and engineering professions instead?’ The Alchemy Spoon aims to demonstrate that this talent was not lost but waiting for a reappraisal of priorities, an unleashing of latent creativity, waiting for its time. The magazine appears three times a year online, with print copy available through ‘print on demand’.

We welcome submissions from both established and unpublished poets, and will devote a significant proportion of each issue to new voices, particularly new phase voices.
We look forward to reading your submissions.

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Issue 20 'Numbers' Free Tip Jar Option Open

Closes on Saturday, October 31, 2026 11:59 PM GMT Standard Time (in 14 days).
  • The theme for this issue is 'Numbers'
  • Name your document: issue 20-intials-lastname
  • You can submit up to 3 poems, you MUST enter the title of each poem (piece) on Duosuma when you submit
  • Poems should be in 12 point Times New Roman with a maximum 40 lines not including the title
  • All your poems must be in ONE word-compatible document
  • Start a new page for each poem with your name at the end of the poem on each page
  • Our pages have a page width of 16cm and print width of 11.5cm (4.5 inches) between margins so poems with very long lines can be difficult to format.
  • Enter a brief bio, maximum of 50 words, in the third person in the Duotrope submission manager

  • We are only able to accept submissions from those over 18
  • Simultaneous submissions are permitted but please tell us straightaway if a poem is accepted for publication elsewhere
  • We aim for a speedy turn-round and will respond to every submission but we don’t offer individual feedback
  • No changes can be made after submission
  • Authors retain all rights. However, if a poem is subsequently published elsewhere, please acknowledge that it first appeared in The Alchemy Spoon
  • Our submission window for Issue 20 is from 1st to 31st October 2026
  • We do not accept Ai generated submissions

If you get a poem published in Issue 19 we ask that you wait for Issue 21 before submitting again

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