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.
Search the archive
Prose and poetry
Poems and prose published on the website from start to finish.
Richard King Perkins II
The Weight of a Father It was fairly simple. All they had to do was follow the mindless path of destruction through torn-up front yards and past broken streets signs to arrive...
Claire Cox
The card given out at his funeral has no obituary. No order of service. Just his name, curlicued and slant, year of birth, hyphen, year of death. Above that, an old print plate of his...
Kim Farleigh
Cruel Laughter Tortoise-shell glasses framed Marc's lively, brown eyes. He worked in Foyles, a leading London bookshop. With his typically huge smile, he said: "A workmate has...
Andrew Shields
Rhine Swim When you slip into the river and float downstream, first swim a little, then tread water to keep your head in the air, then tip it back and kick your legs up to the surface....
Aimée Keeble
henry john lintott I, I, I, the millennium’s baby, That stinking beauty who crunches down hearts like candy I laugh with each push burn of knuckles and open my throat to grey sky...
Judith Wozniak
Recovery room. My words dissolve in the fog of my mask. I peer at faces through a spy hole lens, try to join the fragments. They slip through my brain like egg-white through...
Josie Alford
Glossop Ward In the hospital bed my father sagged and bulged in all the wrong places. He started taking his meds again, said the nebuliser smelled like French bakeries so I...
Lydia Unsworth
Judy Dench watches over When a guard dog barks you start to think about the dark. How very dark. Curtains flap in the wake of a ceiling fan that creaks. How much had to...
Harry Gallagher
Chimpanzees We are chimpanzees. Wellsuited, we hoot, hunt down weaklings; shrieking, beating our chests at the tearing off of flesh. We know not what goes on in the farside of the...
Alix Scott-Martin
Sisters We found her at the bottom of the garden like a dropped apple, held her in the hollows of our palms afraid we might spill her now that she was ours. We kept her in an ice cream...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
John Grey
The House’s Role The house stays put. It has its reasons referred to as people for my purposes. Separated from the outside though not thought particularly isolated - the house considers what the world has to offer other than itself but respectfully...
Linda Rose Parkes
The door sings its welcome it's the kind of door that trickles honey in the light and says come in twice at least leave your coat in the hall the kettle's singing sit yourself down here at the window in the garden oak a blackbird warbles breezes play...
And the Pick of the Month for August 2017 is ‘Cowardice’ by Freya Jackson.
This was a nicely balanced competition with votes and comments across the board but Freya Jackson's supporters just tipped the balance at the end and her 'Cowardice' is Pick of the Month for August. This 'raw', 'visceral' poem disturbed and disoriented but you found...
Sue Finch
The Seventh Car Will Be His As the raindrops collected on the glass the old man opposite strolled down his path. Kneeling on the chair she watched all movement. Next door's tatty tabby sat on the kerb washing methodically behind his ears. A crisp...
Caroline Hardaker
The Issue of the Day It has been discovered that what's known of the fifth fundamental force is the trace of the thing itself. The target has the intrinsic ability to evolve away from its common design into something that cannot be judged,...
Word and Image from Michael Bartholomew-Biggs and Howard Fritz
Take Two After Howard Fritz A flock of geese migrating, startled by a minor earthquake, interrupt a couple’s tilted tête-à-tête. Her headscarf’s pink and contrasts with the drink she clasps – a red Cinzano he’s just bought her. With his...
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
Two new haibun from Jeff Winke
Slides Into the KeywayIt's quite simple. His name is Jarvin, the keeper ofthe keys. Hooked to a belt loop, they dangle as hewalks and make a hard kerplunk on the worn oak stoolwhere he parks his keister for the long afternoon.Jarvin's your man when facing a...
It's Saturday – time for another haiga
• Alexis Rotella is a regular contributor of haiga to Ink Sweat & Tears
New haiga by Alexis Rotella
• Alexis Rotella lives in the US and is a regular contributor of haiga to Ink, Sweat & Tears
Padrika's staying in to watch TV tonight
Tanka for a Thursday night the televisionjams the corners of my roomwith tiny, scared ghosts.They crowd the dark with questionsand flickering, fearful smiles.• Padrika Tarrant is a regular contributor to IS&T – her latest collection of short fiction – Broken...
New haiga by Alexis Rotella
Short fiction/haibun by Ken Head
Man With BreadThe face of labour on the streetSome days, bread warm from the oven makes it easier to forget I’ve nothing else to eat. But not today. Not after being told to wait while the baker’s wife helped those women in expensive coats who were in a...
12 Days of Christmas
All the poems from our regular 12 days of Christmas feature.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Words & Images
Words with images previously published on the website.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Blogs and news
Blogs and archived news from 2007 to 2020.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Reviews
Archived reviews from 2007 to 2020.
Luke Thompson on Adam Marek’s ‘The Stone Thrower’
‘Medical section’s upstairs,’ she told me. ‘I think it should be in fiction.’ ‘Then we don’t got it.’...
Zeeba Ansari reviews ‘What Women Want’ by Myra Schneider
Myra Schneider’s pamphlet What Women Want is full of riches. The poems are textured with images that keep surprising –...
James Naiden reviews ‘It Takes you Over’ by Nick Healy
...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.