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.
Simon Williams
A Strange Case There’s something floating in the Brayford Pool. Two swans, raw recruits, investigate. As a sub-plot, one showboats the other. The pen ignores him. Two high-viz...
Daniel Fraser
To Essex Worn stones lean toward the train, where blue lichens graze on lost nouns, passengers stuck still waiting for a service. In Leyton, four men carry one bouquet, dark...
Rupert Locke
Walking I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least…sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields – Henry David...
Emma Baines
Vital Signs We laughed, in spite of the darkness, at the circles around your eyes. and you rolled them over hand-knitted hats in the chemo ward, to cover things we tried to hide. when...
Beth McDonough
Check you, on my doorstep, loaded with one bam-on-the-glass headbanger wasp. You’re offering me sharp glimpses of glint, that dropped tumbler’s unswept-up chip. How it grins...
Bridget Hart
His Mum Said He Liked Me Easter holidays 1998, puberty imminent his lips as dry as the grass we are trespassing on my cheek is sweaty though, makes it sweet. Mansell Junior...
Karley Denniston
Sucker Let’s buy a house - a big one - big enough to hold old resentments and future fights. Let’s get an old one, one in the country, the kind that has a lock on each door and...
Archita Mittra
letter to pluto in a parallel life, you were a dog in technicolor/ with meals & a kid to play ball with/ a family to mourn your death/ but here, you’re a change- ling child-...
Diane Mulholland
Crossing Points: The Last Hour It’s late, and he’s watching. Each rise of her chest is less tangible than a prayer. Now and then he presses an ear to her lips, his own breath held...
Z D Dicks
The Orchard Down past rough slivers of Cotswold stone wall was the lower garden reaching from earth gnarled tendrils erupted like arthritic hands pear and...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
Daryl Muranaka
Politics and Other Distractions wildflowers in the yard waiting to be mowed in the forest no tree grows too fast or too high the earth moves on the floor the baby sleeps black mulch thrown on new snow as if that helps ...
Susan Richardson
Letches The call to bright lights is a whisper, tempting souls into the clutches of dreams that hang on a celluloid precipice. Los Angeles turns us into letches who lurk under the wings of angels, covered in soot from generations of sweeping up...
Peter Daniels
The Venue Could you please wait for the indicator buzzer on the control panel: staff will be glad to oblige. Though let’s be blunt, we want you as guinea pigs, to make you feel responsible, and see you blush. Sorry about the...
Hannah Linden
Above the Living Room Fire Everyone had that painting, didn't they? Well, everyone we knew round here. But not everyone felt as proud of it. Not everyone's mum looked like her so that there was a nod, an embarrassed look down as a man's eye swept the painting's...
‘Dummies’ by Jane Salmons is our Pick of the Month for February 2018
The votes are in and the ‘Dummies’ have it for February 2018. Jane Salmons' poem - ‘stunning’ ‘vibrant’ ‘fun’ - with its ‘brilliant’ image thoroughly appealed, occasionally disconcerted, and marks the first time a Word & Image piece has been chosen as an IS&T...
Editor Deborah Alma on the #MeToo Anthology, for International Women’s Day
#UsTogether I remember back in October, listening to some of those many conversations that started up in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations and was surprised to hear male news reporters being genuinely shocked when they asked women...
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
Three haiku by Patsy Goodsir
Email from brother,Edmonton 30 below,he's hibernating Dogs with sad facestheir mum's packing her suitcasebut just for one nightGot soaked to the skin,walking to the paper shop,just to pay a bill!* Patsy Goodsir describes herself as "A daft granny who...
New haiga – Jeff Winke likes 'gelid'
* Jeffrey Winke is a regular IS&T contributor
Three haiku by Jac Cattaneo
Three mornings Cat up winter tree;crouching black on bare branches,gazing at the sky. Mist smudges daytimeinto grey; trees disappear.Train puffs through the clouds. Sunshine paints the walls.A lark sings on a rooftop;rosy morning...
Jack Kerouac reads some haiku
Here's a treat from the archives, a recording of Jack Kerouac reading some of his haiku with a background accompaniment of jazz riffs. It all sounds a little corny now but back then (the recording must be late 1950s) this was the epitome of being part of the cool...
Anne Brooke is worrying about Shakespeare
Anne Brooke says she's started worrying about Shakespeare and upside-down haikus. Here's one...A Shakespeare precis:Man is born, and dies.Only love remainsor the memory of sin.* Anne Brooke has recently been surprised by an early spring, which drew her...
New haiga by 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.
Two concrete poems by Deborah Gordon
OF BEAUTYREGRET• This is Deborah Gordon's first appearance on IS&T. She says "I began writing at the age of seven and since then have never really stopped. I like to experiment with all different styles and mediums and the concept of movement: To...
New concrete poetry by Chris Major
Concrete and prose by Caroline Maldonado
Today we've got two pieces by a new contributor – Caroline Maldonado – a concrete poem and a prose poem. And, in case you were wondering, the tango is danced in a figure of eight pattern.TANGO IS ...
Two new concrete poems/caligrams by Christopher Major
UNTITLED(so as not to offend the Sudanese Government) 0 ...
T.S. Eliot's Prufrock goes multimedia
This multimedia treatment of T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock received a name check in the books section of this Saturday's Times newspaper, so we thought we'd track down the clip and let you see it for yourself. The animation is by Everett...
Multimedia poetry – Class of by Rikki
Class of..• Rikki is 18 and lives in San Diego, he says "What is there to really know about me. If you don't know me already then i guess theres everything. How do you sum up all that you are in a few sentences. How do you sum yourself up with boundaries,...
Blogs and news
Blogs and archived news from 2007 to 2020.
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Reviews
Archived reviews from 2007 to 2020.
David Cooke reviews ‘Prospero’s Bowl’ by Ken Head
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Ken Head reviews ‘The Gypsy and the Poet’ by David Morley
The strands of David Morley's thought in this collection are rich and various. On the one hand, he makes use of his...
Fiona Sinclair reviews ‘Fred and Blossom’ by Michael Bartholomew- Biggs
The history of the aeroplane becomes the third character in...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
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