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.
Stefano Bortolussi
A Canyon The perfect triangle of sea gently emerges from the canyon’s last curve, alluring, pubic, venereal, a promise of a congress as prolonged as the arc of the afternoon in...
Chrissy Banks
If you don’t come back I will turn to the woods. To winter woods trees rising above their heap of leaves. I’ll turn to the hills that endure rain, flood, fog, snow and storm the worst...
L. Haiman
Mouse around There's only two ways: Chasing or being chased, You know? Running towards or from. Can't it be both? Yeah, if you're on a spinning wheel. And aren't you? Well, yeah... You...
Hélène Demetriades
Home improvements Dark red bricks huddle off duty on the patio, coated in plasterer’s dust, knocked out of their wall like old teeth. An outburst of bird song enters our home -...
Michael Bloor
Bishop Berkeley’s Theory of Abstraction Kim Brown (kim25071999@quiknet.com) Sat 5 Jan 2019 11:50 To: Alex Brown (alexkbrown1969@quiknet.com)...
Jane Angué
After-taste There were three cakes. We still talked then. He held out a small piece, raised it to my mouth to taste. I took it carefully between my lips and acquiesced. To avoid crumbs...
Peter Burrows
Bike Riding standing where you should be sharing a joke watching as they played I step up leaning forward to teach your boy how to cycle free unsure if he’s ready or how to...
Gareth Writer-Davies
Tooth & Claw the house reeks of rotting rats which I guess is progress they had gotten bold chewing through infrastructure, infesting the cavities and like family who can outstay a...
Victoria Pickup
Safeguarding Things to look out for: If the pupil is suddenly withdrawn If she shies away from PSHE If you hear talk of ‘a special event’. If the family requests an ‘authorised...
Sarah L Dixon
How to rebuild your life For Allan Heaton You do not need screwdrivers, flat, or the type we shall call cross-head, if they need to be named. My ex was called Philip and his...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
Eloise Unerman
Divorce for Dummies Our divorce was a collection of digestive biscuit meetings, the formalities of splitting our elaborate throw cushion collection, who would have the kids - a pair of ugly goat mugs neither of us wanted but neither of us would give...
Skendha Singh is our IS&T Pick of the Month Poet for November 2018
We have all been there. And that is why Skendha Singh's simple yet effective, still yet biting, accessible yet intense poem 'Dear -', punctuating the end of a relationship, is the IS&T Pick of the Month for November 2018. Skendha graduated with an M.Litt in...
Rebecca Gethin
Narrowing Fog inhabits the air so as I walk through cloud shadow I find another beside me, her breath condensing on my hair drawing me into the grey no-light that sprawls around, ensnaring me in a long drawn-out dawn where all I can see lies at...
Beth McDonough
We observe this word, abscission turn fashionable, hang in air. Once botanists’ part-property, at least cased in scientific sights; now – in this most now of times – it’s ours. Perhaps this year holds terms longer, closer than is usual. Leaves in...
Andrew Turner
While the rope creaks The tall red haired girl recollects that she has balanced on the frayed tips of forests the mutant skins of rivers the sawn edges of seas that her precarious symmetry has taken her along the uncertain beam of the world but now she...
Skendha Singh
Dear - or, maybe not dear. Or dear, as addressed to an editor, an employer, a stranger one has business with. But, not a stranger, intimate - like an ex, but not estranged, close as a friend, watchful like a long-nosed neighbour. You are too heavy...
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
New haiga: Welcombe Mouth by Rachel Green
* Rachel Green is a writer and novelist. She starts every day walking her dogs and writing poetry – and has also started 'tweeting' an early morning haiku from her Twitter account – you can find her here http://twitter.com/leatherdykeuk
New haiga by Pris Campbell & Geoff Sanderson
Words by Pris Campbell, image by Geoff Sanderson * Pris Campbell has published haiga and free verse poetry in numerous journals. She lives in West Palm Beach, Florida. Geoff Sanderson has published haiga in several journals and is a poet/photographer. He is...
Three haiku by Bill Cooper
the hoe at restearthwormschurn# # # # # sideways beneathan arch of sea oatsfiddler crab# # # # # summer duskabove the coffee bargebassoon notes* Bill Cooper is the Distinguished University Professor & President Emeritus, University of Richmond, Virginia
Two new haiku by Heather Ann Schmidt
Snow covered maple –my mother's bones wrapped aroundour long goodbye.# # # # #Summer stars –my children connecting shapeswith their fingers.* Heather Ann Schmidt received her MFA in Poetry from National University. She teaches writing at Oakland Community...
An autumnal haiga by Francis Masat
* Francis Masat is Co-editor of Key-Ku (Florida Keys haiku) and author of Lilacs After Winter (haibun) and other books. This haiku first appeared in the Bottle Rockets (8.2, 2006).
Four haiku by Dan Bowan
Open fires burnOutside homes, whileChildren favour disquiet over sleep. 5 o’clock darkness reminds the shopkeeper –Run from the evening dogs,Or fall with your brothers by the wayside. Oak trees shed faithfullyYear upon year. Sorrowful eyes looking...
12 Days of Christmas
All the poems from our regular 12 days of Christmas feature.
The Twelfth Day of Christmas: Carole Bromley
If I’d been Santa Claus If I’d been Santa Claus I wouldn’t have lived in a semi in a place in North Yorkshire; I’d have set sail from my fur-lined igloo once a year over the whole sleeping world. I’d have grown a wonderful beard, slopped about in...
The Eleventh Day of Christmas: Agnes Lehoczky
from Siula Grande White night 1 The forecast is for newer snowfalls. For another fading face, another forest to be erased with transparent ink from the landscape and then forgotten. The last thing you would want is to freeze thirty thousand...
The Tenth Day of Christmas: Sarah Bower
An Epiphany ‘I can’t help you,’ says the guy on the desk. ‘Look at this place. The Israelis bomb it and then they drive tanks over the rubble, How would I notice one more lump of concrete among all the rest?’ ‘Not concrete,’ mumbles Caspar. It’s the...
The Ninth Day of Christmas: Paul Sands, James Naiden
Many A Hog this twenty twelve has not ended quietly see dandelions of every hue roar its surrender and lanterns of hope carry prayers to their oblivion while ill attired and worse tempered the Wife Beaters consorts surge clanging and clattering through a wide...
The Eighth Day of Christmas: John Regan
Song This evening’s clouds capture The private imperative of prayer. The impossible confluence Of sky, water in air. There is something in them of us- Our bending toward silent speech. Bearing at an event horizon, To each, an ever-escaping...
The Seventh Day of Christmas: Adam Warne, Zelda Chappel
A Christmas Carol From Ovid He dumped her by text. She sat outside Costa and read the message: “i don't think we should see each other anymore” What a dick. She wasn't going to let him make her cry. She started to cry. As she cried the tears...
Words & Images
Words with images previously published on the website.
Rula Jones has a diary of a product
Diary of a ProductThey gave me a name And I felt myself become the name. Proud of my logo, I Was eager to leave the production line,Impatiently waiting my turn in acquisition. The line workers said not to hurry, That I had time, but I was too Animated. At...
M R Wallis has a black-out poem for a red letter election day
* M. R. Wallis is attempting to change the way in which people interact with poetry and prose on a day-by-day basis. His website www.somethingeveryday.co.uk endeavours to upload a new piece of creative work (art, poetry or prose) by Max every day, indefinitely. Max is...
New concrete poetry: Jonathan Pinnock has hit rock bottom
* Jonathan Pinnock has had a fair bit of poetry published here and there, as well as ending up on a few shortlists. However for the moment he would prefer to be known as the author of the increasingly peculiar fictional serial Mrs Darcy vs The Aliens which you may...
New poetry animation 'And Day brought back my Night'
Time for another poetry animation: And Day Brought Back My Night by Geoffrey Brock from his Weighing Light collection...
New animation: Ninas Blues by Cornelius Eady
Here's a new animated poem – Nina's Blues – written and read by Cornelius Eady. It is part of the Poetry Everywhere initiative, produced by the Poetry Foundation in association with docUWM at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The animation by Ryan...
New animation: Space Bar by Heather McHugh
Here's a new animated poem – Space Bar – read by Heather McHugh. It is part of the Poetry Everywhere initiative, produced by the Poetry Foundation in association with docUWM at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The animation by Braulio Garcia.
Blogs and news
Blogs and archived news from 2007 to 2020.
And the Winners of the Ink Sweat & Tears/Café Writers Poetry Pamphlet Commission are…
The standard of entries this year was so high that when it came right down to it we simply could not decide...
12 Days of Christmas…Call for Submissions
We are currently reading submissions for our annual 12 Days of Christmas feature. As you may have gathered, we have...
A Selection of ‘Slanted’ Temptations
To mark today's official launch at The Book Hive in Norwich of IS&T Press' first publication TWELVE Slanted Poems...
Reviews
Archived reviews from 2007 to 2020.
Cian Murphy reviews ‘The Seasons of Cullen Church’ by Bernard O’Donoghue
Bernard O’Donoghue says it is difficult to name a poetry book, because most are made up of ‘bits and pieces’. The...
Jessica Mookherjee reviews ‘Glass’ by Elisabeth Sennitt Clough
Glass is Elisabeth Sennitt Clough’s first collection and she immediately draws us into a bleak,...
Jeffrey Loffman reviews David Hughes, Matthew Clegg and Jane Routh
Three poets whose poetry contains a sense of place and being where edges, historic, water- flowed or rock faced...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
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