Welcome to the Ink Sweat & Tears Poetry Archive

This archive is formed from all the posts from that original Ink Sweat & Tears website, it now consists of everything we have published up to the end of 2019. IS&T was founded by Salt author Charles Christian in 2007 as a platform for new poetry and short prose, and experimental work in digital media. Charles ran the site single-handedly, publishing new work every day till 2010, when now sole editor, poet and artist Helen Ivory came on board as Deputy Editor. The Ink Sweat & Tears website continues to run and can be found here. 

You can either click on the poems below which run from most recent to oldest, or you can search for particular poem or poet, there is also a list of all the categories to click through. From Prose & Poetry to Words and Images, Haibun, Tanka, Haiku & Haiga, in addition we have all of the Poems of the month and Poetry picks, old blogs and news, award nominated, reviews and interviews.

Please do take a look.

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Prose and poetry

Poems and prose published on the website from start to finish.

Lucy Ingrams

by | Dec 21, 2019 |

moonrise new chevrons   chalking the wind   – two terns   re- turned north   re- vise the estuary’s    silvers rollers   far out   lumpen with seals   the links hump   with bronze hordes  of whin...

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Matt Pitt

by | Dec 20, 2019 |

Rain Dog Afterwards, the pool table (cue ball chalk, two stripes) posed for Paul Cezanne. The drinkers who were plunged in conversation seemed suddenly and simultaneously to lose their train of...

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Penny Blackburn

by | Dec 19, 2019 |

Lake Swim Though I don’t like to put my head under, I want to follow the thin nylon line that tethers the marker in place; finger-tap the concrete block anchoring the buoy to the lake bed. I would...

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Katherine Collins

by | Dec 18, 2019 |

Beauty and Despair on the Rail Replacement Bus The journey is a mural etched in hazy relief on the outside of the windows, viscous and not at all malleable. It reflects your fatigue in a pinched...

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Charlie Baylis

by | Dec 16, 2019 |

xyla   take some from her i drop the sunlight             down her the rum is bright red          her   marbles roll out my eyes i’ve painted my fingernails xyla yellow      through who...

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Adrian Salmon

by | Dec 15, 2019 |

She has had a glimpse of heaven and will not be denied they try to feed her and she can feel it slipping her rage is righteous it is perfect she does not want to be good when perfection is possible...

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Jennifer McGowan

by | Dec 13, 2019 |

The Poet’s Wife Delivers a Comeuppance I tried to talk to you, but words always stood in the way. I have to write a poem today, you explained. It’s about trains. And that was as close as I got. So...

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Paul Connolly

by | Dec 12, 2019 |

Tree Past foil-wrapped dark liqueurs, cough-mixture sick, he shins up the tinsel-twisted plastic boughs, dust musted, under chocolate snowmen, to browse the halls of elongating sideshow-trick glass,...

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Ruth Hanchett

by | Dec 11, 2019 |

That’s me After Woman in a Hat (Olga) 1935:  Pablo Picasso.   Woman in a hat, nineteen thirty five, that’s me, something of a clown off balance minus the bold red lips, just a squiffy slit of a...

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Poetry Picks

Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019

Anita Goveas

Dec 14, 2019 | ,

Titles of my autobiography I have discarded -Everything I know I learned from my mother -Life changed the second time my sister went into hospital -Shame is a social construct -My first day at nursery, the teacher blushed when I described an aubergine -While my...

Matt Merritt

Dec 10, 2019 | ,

      Peninkulma The precise distance at which a dog’s bark dissolves into nothing. Much further, you might think, in the snow-soft forests of Scandinavia than some dormitory suburb, or a small town whose sleep is still measured by the hourly chime of a...

Mick Corrigan

Dec 4, 2019 | ,

      No more ordinary mornings There are no more ordinary mornings when Greenland comes pouring through your letterbox and the chickens have stopped giving milk, when you don’t have to go to the sea anymore as the sea is now coming to you. There are no...

Abegail Morley

Nov 26, 2019 | , ,

      End Forget you. The ash of bone. The uncradled heart, leaky valve long scorched. Forget the unthinking arm that fell on my shoulder, those times we crossed the M6 flyover and you drove with one hand on the wheel and I’d change gear, rather badly....

Elisabeth Sennitt Clough

Nov 24, 2019 | ,

    Ague When it comes, it will scratch away the surface of Fen, release the secrets of our soil. It will sing its lullaby over a girl’s bones at the bottom of a village well. Its tongue will rouse small forms to hatch in the eyes of a dying mare. It will...

Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga

Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.

Louise Hopewell

Dec 17, 2019 |

      * dry gully not the friend I thought you were * the boss says it’s optional yellow-bellied blacksnake * crumpled sleeping bag the rippled reflection of a freeway pylon * Lovers’ Bay a single set of seagull prints * trampled daffodil the long...

Lavana Kray

Oct 19, 2019 |

    Lavana Kray is from Romania. She has won several awards, including the status of  Master Haiga Artist, from the World Haiku Association. Her work  has been published in many print and online journals.  Currently she is the editor for Cattails Haiga works...

William Keckler

May 7, 2019 |

      hugging mother's urn inner child steps over sidewalk cracks       * first grey hairs he stands on his hands before making love         * pew pew some homely holiness aims at us          * talking to a snake we discover just skin shed skin...

Lavana Kray

Feb 21, 2019 |

      Lavana Kray is from Iasi – Romania. She has won several awards, including the status of  Master Haiga Artist, from the World Haiku Association. Her work  has been published in many print and online journals.  Currently she is the editor for...

Sonam Chhoki

Dec 13, 2018 |

    * pressed in my diary the guava blossom you picked has lost its fragrance * rain-soaked scent of pine duff I still walk our favourite slope to watch paddy ripening in the fields * heads thrown back a pair of black-necked cranes fling their call to the...

Tony Burfield

Dec 5, 2018 |

      Rutted The sabbath, I pray to the cliffs. The Button Rock Hermit chants somewhere back in the pines. There is wind over everything, even the far highway roar. Our complicity sinks heart, sinks bone. I shift from reverse to first and bounce down...

12 Days of Christmas

All the poems from our regular 12 days of Christmas feature.

Words & Images

Words with images previously published on the website.

Word & Image by Jane Salmons

Nov 23, 2018 |

    Mata Hari and the Jellyfish Time bends in the exam hall, drapes skim scuffed parquet floor, the smell of plimsoles and dust lingers. All quiet, except the huff and yawn of an old, old invigilator roaming the aisles like a kraken. Above, carved in oak,...

Rob Stuart

Oct 16, 2018 |

    Action Poem   Rob Stuart’s poems and short stories have been published in magazines, newspapers and webzines all over the world. He has also written the screenplays for several award-winning and internationally exhibited short films. His website can...

Sascha Aurora Akhtar

Mar 25, 2018 | ,

  I want 2 b naked on your regal mountain I want 2 absorb your hand with mine from fingertip 2 palm, 2 finger tip         Sascha Aurora Akhtar, is a trans-race, multi-dimensional, sub rosa poeto/story-bot. She was patented in Pakistan. Had...

Blogs and news

Blogs and archived news from 2007 to 2020.

Reviews

Archived reviews from 2007 to 2020.

Interviews

Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.