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.
Michael W. Thomas
The living-rooms of people in later life The living-rooms of people in later life are sometimes a mess as though they also must over time droop and unhinge. Most, though, are tidy...
Julie Mellor
bad dream malum somnium a found poem as the daughter of a bankrupt businessman I’m into men in prison and the hashtagged word erasure of memory is the abiding...
Robert S.Daley
The Stony Heart We had travelled thousands of kilometres across Australia in a Jeep Wrangler, through sagebrush and spinifex and red sand to get to the centre of this world. But...
Alison Binney
#WhyIDidntReportIt All he was doing was standing alone in the pool, spreading his arms out the width of the double lane, just looking, all he was doing was taking the point...
Jude Cowan Montague
Royal Enfield I wish, when I go to Goa, I could see my father riding a Thunderbird down the dusty streets chasing the final adventure. He might drive right past me, enthralled...
Oz Hardwick
Off-Peak Single The turnstile jammed, trapping me half way through, casting me in the role of inconvenience for the queue that gathered in Fibonacci curves,...
Josh Ekroy
Join You’re reading my poetry so why not come to my monthly group meetings? Your presence will keep me fresh and as the idea of the poem is changing you will be at the forefront of...
Gill Lambert
The Small Stuff I worry about you, girl, so don't worry about yourself. Don't settle for the first man who says he loves you, there'll be others. Any dress you wear will be...
Scott Manley Hadley
Love Poem #34 I want to be in snow so cold with you I start to cry I want to be in rain so hard with you that I feel naked because all my clothes are stuck to the skin I want...
Jacquie Wyatt
In My Twenties I Told a Story about putting you, my own father, in hospital after you went for me. You never did. I never did but that ‘never’ was why you paid for my Judo...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
Lewis Buxton
Mundesley I stand on one of the groynes as if posing for an album cover behind me in the cold arcade coins drop into penny falls it is December and everyone is losing because whatever they win is never something they want they leave with hands...
Ali McGrane
Seeing in Colour Canvasses rotting behind the shed An ochre sky, the sharp stink of linseed on a rag The temper of blood on white tiles A coffin glossed with slick tints of autumn leaves in oils Art is not what you see but what you make others see. Where...
George Helder
Starve yourself I sit on my bed eating leftover soup from microwaved tupperware to stave off a dizzy spell. The plastic is discoloured from re-heating baked beans. I use a teaspoon so it takes longer, takes more mouthfuls. It’s a trick I learned....
Charles Tarlton
TIME, GENTLEMEN, TIME CARMODY: We ought not take too long describing the winds or the leaves that dance along them. Ah. BLIGHT: What the older man knows. That’s my objective. Then you tell the truth, when you shift your...
Charlotte Appleby
Mr. Wrong Can’t wear the red velvet skirt I love the hem won’t cover bruised knees, can’t talk—shouldn’t talk—to family don’t need them asking me again ‘why don’t you just leave?’ If the roast isn’t on the table at five o’clock sharp, then he’ll finish...
And the Pick of the Month for July 2017 is ‘Birds’ by Rizwan Akhtar
This one came right down to the wire and at one point we thought it might be a draw but Rizwan Akhtar's 'Birds' just edged ahead to be Pick of the Month for July 2017.* What caught voters' attention was the imagery, the allusions and the wonderful use of language....
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
Two haiku by Daniel Wilcox
red hair of my wifeflickering in the hot wind,glowing bed of fire ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ crinkly gray strandsin the black brush of bristlesapproaching heir time• Daniel Wilcox, a former activist, teacher, and wanderer, is leaving a vapor trail of poetic debris,...
New haiga by Alexis Rotella
New haibun by Tish Davis
Brother of the Sea Lake Erie – blue water and sky become one. I sit in the sand not far from the place along the channel where my father and I used to fish. The beach is smaller now, cluttered with garbage cans and signs. The driftwood too, scattered along...
A haibun for the holiday weekend
Spring is in the air, there is a holiday weekend in the UK and it's time to relax – so here is a new haibun by regular IS&T contributor Mike Montreuil...WEEKDAY PICNICIts one of those picture perfect days. You arrive with your girlfriend and...
New haiga by Alexis Rotella
New haiga by Maggie West
• Maggie West says "After I had been writing short poems for some years, I discovered haiku while studying formal western-style calligraphy. In 1992, I became a member of The British Haiku Society and was thereby introduced to other forms of Japanese poetry. Working...
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.
James Naiden on Tim Nolan
Let me take the more recent...
James Naiden reviews ‘Invisible Strings’ by Jim Moore
This delicately rendered collection has many durable insights conveyed simply, almost epigrammatically. These poems...
Sarah Bower reviews ‘The Polish Boxer’ by Eduardo Halfon
An Elegant Illusion: The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon, tr. Daniel Hahn, Ollie Brock, Lisa Dillman,...
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.