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.
Sam Burt
A Consensus One bright morning in December, the court agreed unanimously that: the former prime minister was two months dead; he was guilty of treason in absentia; he had...
Avril Joy
Aztec Love Song for Uprooted Flowers I carry them to your house on my back, uprooted flowers. I am bent double with the weight of them, of women torn from the soil, their roots...
Rebecca Ruth Gould
Bird on a Branch A bird poised on a branch asked the moon lover for the number of lives she had left before she died. She plumed her feathers like a canopy & tried to...
Julia Gibson
Staying Put When you stick around for long enough, you get good at being in a place. You know the best secluded spots where you can watch stars or sunbathe on a rock, letting...
John Porter
Bear hunt The mistake was leaving the window open an exit to fly to the forest at the moon’s invitation and track the smell on the sweat from the firs. Is she hiding tonight? Or...
Leah Larwood
Alchemy of sleep When night turns to ice, and where walls turn to rain turn to sea, after half light turns to day dark, and where beds turn to urns and time turns to you, and...
Rachel Goodman
Composition 10/ Pier and Ocean – Piet Mondrian a peeled eye prickling turned to the outside I am already here underknowledge poking through I itch with the shame of it follicles...
Vivien Thomason
Louche Old Man in Tartan Trousers Swaggering up Upper St Denim jacket Wild grey hair 70 if a day Heading to the Hope and Anchor? Dragging on a Soubrani What have you lived...
Ruth Kelsey
Invigilation In fifty years there’ll only be the sanitised versions, adaptations printed in school text-books, papers analysed to death by academics; another chapter of our...
Lee Prosser
White-Knuckles In the force of the fall, it’s OK to call your screams outbursts of joy as long as they don’t shrill. You can fool everyone, if you keep your body still and maintain a...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
Angela Readman for National Flash-Fiction Day
Letters to a Pizza Company Dear Papa John’s, Let me tell you something I’ve been thinking. I have some pizza concerns. I enjoy the odd slice on Thursdays. Once I’ve put the children to bed, swished out their Disney cups, ironed, and packed their...
Myra Schneider On Grenfell
IF Grenfell Tower a Year On If trying to keep your head, you raced towards the pillar of flame and smoke choking the building, not knowing if your children, partner, mother, brother, friend were trapped inside it; if you lost one or many...
L Kiew
Rhubarb ear-deep amid the petioles engorged and pink listening to the rain striking a timpani of leaf-blades my eardrums itch after that slither adder crowning the rhubarb its hissing wire-brushes my cochlea crimson stalks A...
Anna Saunders
Blake Draws The Ghost of a Flea Blake says the flea complains of a haunting. He says he will draw the ghost within the flea. From the darkness of the mahogany board, Blake exhumes a body. Not a pinprick creature that could be crushed under the...
Derek Adams
Auto-da-fé (London 1955) In the mirror of fitting room at Harvey Nichols. I am wearing a black sanbenito by Tomás de Torquemada, decorated with devils from my past. Outside the London streets are foggy, in Lewes they will already be stacking wood...
Silas Gorin
Last Kiss She landed, her first hours totally floored. Away from the nest far away as a star. Her wings are a lattice of straw with lachrymal dope binding the pale rose-raw reed of her skin; her eyes are a blessing of fear thrumming the lids as...
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
Three haiku by Jac Cattaneo
Sea Palling – three haikuWhite tern arrows at waters of the wind-ripped bay –glides before plungingTall poles stand rusted sentry over strips of green,purple, turquoise seaSwallows weave acrosscloud-nets of gauze, thread through theinsect-heavy skies* Jac Cattaneo is...
New haiku + illustration
With the UK having already had its coldest winter for 25 years (and there's plenty more to come say weathermen) here's a seasonal haiku by regular IS&T contributor Patsy Goodsir, along with a photo she took at sunset yesterday (Sunday)...A New Year...
Midsummer haiga by Rachel Green
It's Midsummer's Night Eve (well it still is here in the UK) and what better than a faerie themed haiga...* Rachel Green is a regular IS&T haiga contributor – as well as a novel writer who will shortly become an novel author but she starts every day with...
Something for the weekend – more erotic haiku
Following hard on the heels of Larry Kimmel's erotic collection from a fortnight ago, here we go with some more sensual haiku to set you up for the weekend...his lustby moonlightwhich one of us the muse? between the billowof freshly washed...
Motorcycle haiga by John Irvine
* John Irvine is a regular IS&T contributor – and the editor of the new Anomalous Appetites anthology
New haiga by Alexis Rotella
With women's rights an issue in Afghanistan and an election taking place in Iran, here's a topical haiga by regular IS&T contributor Alexis Rotella...
12 Days of Christmas
All the poems from our regular 12 days of Christmas feature.
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Words & Images
Words with images previously published on the website.
New podcast by The Joy of Six
Here's our latest poetry podcast recording, courtesy of PoetCasting.co.uk. The poem – Package – is by The Joy is Six, a collective of published and prize-winning poets based in England who collaborate and perform at events throughout the UK. The tracks is taken...
New concrete poetry by Chris Major
* Chris Major is a regular IS&T contributor
New podcast by Hannah Silva
Here's our latest poetry podcast recording, courtesy of PoetCasting.co.uk. The poem – Talking to Silence – is by another IS&T contributor Hannah Silva. Hannah Silva performs her poetry regularly in the South West. In London she has performed within La...
New podcast by Ken Head
Here's our latest poetry podcast recording, courtesy of PoetCasting.co.uk. The poem – Winter Collection – is by regular IS&T contributor Ken Head and taken from his new digital chapbook published by Snakeskin.* Instructions: To access this podcast: click on...
New poetry podcast by Jo Bell
Here's the first of our poetry podcast recordings, courtesy of PoetCasting.co.uk. The poem – Things I Should Have Said At The Time, But Never Did – is by Jo Bell. An archaeologist by training, Jo Bell is the Co-ordinator of National Poetry Day (October 9th) and...
New haiga by Rachel Green
* Rachel Green is a novel writer who will shortly become an novel author, but she starts every day with walking her dogs and writing poetry. Books of haiku available from www.leatherdyke.co.uk
Blogs and news
Blogs and archived news from 2007 to 2020.
Major revamp ahoy!
Ink Sweat & Tears is about to undergo a major revamp - not just a new look but also a whole new outlook. Normal...
Reviews
Archived reviews from 2007 to 2020.
Wendy Pratt reviews ‘Letting Go’ by Angela Topping
In Letting Go, Angela Topping writes about loss, she writes about love, she writes about parents...
Andrea Porter on Dan O’Brien’s ‘Scarsdale’
O’Brien’s debut collection War Reporter recently won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize for best first...
Sue Barnard reviews Cathy Bryant’s Look At All The Women
Women are everywhere, doing all manner of tasks in all manner of ways. In this witty yet...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
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