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.
Daniel Wade
Rapids When he got kicked out in second year for smoking hash on the Astroturf, relief heaved from everyone’s throat. No longer would we have to fear his ape-like strut, fists’...
Judith Taylor
Platform From where I sat I thought he was wearing red shoes an eccentric choice with all that so correct black and I liked him for it. Not until he stepped down did I see they too...
Sue Wallace-Shaddad
Geometry I feel boxed in triangulated condemned to slow spherical orbit. I could be a square pretending to be a rectangle but the isosceles in me won’t have it. My...
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...
Robert Boucheron
Grapefruit A yellow globe sliced in half, a hemisphere of pliable skin, a whole serving, a cool sun in a shallow bowl—such is the grapefruit. To one who sits upright eyes half...
Hannah Stone
Housewife (‘noun. (2) A small case for needles, thread and other small sewing items’) The day he cut free she watched him pack his panniers with essentials. Offered a...
Patrick Holloway
The naming of things You have swallowed a planet & I have been witness To its swelling & swirling, Have felt it orbit Beneath my hand, Have seen its gravity Pull you...
Mark Totterdell
Lampyris Stumbling along the lane through a tunnel of grasping branches, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. This is no idle cliché or exaggeration; he simply couldn’t....
Daisy Coral Eve
Sea View Whenever he’s not with me I think of the mole on his back, espresso brown, mild in temperature and always lifting to the touch as the skin on our morning coffee, left on the...
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,...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
And our Pick of the Month for April 2017 is David Subacchi’s ‘Cross Country’
More than 250 of you voted - a record for us - leading to a sprint finish that saw 'Cross Country' by David Subacchi as our Pick of the Month for April 2017. This fine poem struck a nostalgic nerve with many of you although it was 50/50 as to whether you loved...
Michael Farry
The Beach Dead sand trickles between my naked toes. Crushed winter light befuddles borders, obscures the pier, unsettles the breakwater; ships labour under dubious cargoes. Swimmers and surfers, those gritty heroes of the shallows, have deserted, children,...
Carole Bromley
The New Mother found poem from Every Woman’s Doctor Book If your figure is not as trim as before make yourself a brassiere from a 45 inch length of towelling. Most mothers whose figures are loose will be much improved by wearing a good corset belt. If there...
Jane Wilkinson
Your location Round the corner I hear you coming I hear you coming round the corner of the barn I arrange my arms and legs I hear around the corner of the barn the gravel’s tough back teeth working doggedly on splintering a bone I spin up a cloud of smoke to be...
David Subacchi
Cross Country A reluctant concession For those of insufficient bulk Or violent disposition To take part in the awful Battle of blood and mud Laughingly referred to As a game. Unsupervised Our route wound Far away from The killing fields Past gasworks And...
Abegail Morley
Seamless Ever since I remodelled my sister’s hair they’ve hidden scissors, pen knives, sometimes needles in a locked room. The key’s hidden under a stone somewhere in the nettled-yard. I recognise its glint, slip it in my shirt pocket, squeeze it in my...
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
New taiga by Pamela Babusci
• Pamela Babusci is an American poet and artist (and previous contributor to IS&T) living in Rochester, New York. She describes 'taiga' as made-up term for combining tanka with art, in the same way that a haiku + art becomes a haiga.
Haiga by CarrieAnn Thunell
• CarrieAnn Thunell is a regular contributor of haiga to IS&T – she describes herself as "an ecology and peace activist, backpacker, nature photographer, artist, poet, and amateur landscape artist/gardener."
Two pieces by Ivor Murrell
All for thirty YuanCrossing Tian Na Menfluttering midnight kites soarabove the rickshawWho flies kites at night?Somewhere on the darkened squaredreams tug on taut stringsAt a funeral of the previous generation(For Jamie and Rupert, with confidence! February 11th...
Love Lane haiga – by Mandy Smith & Emily Lin
• Mandy Smith is an English girl who meanders through life enjoying astronomy, postmodernist deconstruction and collaborating with photographers to produce haiga. Mandy's Meanderings can be visited at http://mandysmeanderings.blogspot.com/Emily Lin is a young...
Some haiku for the weekend
Four haiku to consider for the weekend – Bluebell woods is by one of IS&T's regular contributors Phuoc-Tan Diep while the remaining three – Berlin, Proust and Buddha are by Ken Head, whose work has also been published in IS&T over the summer.Blood in...
Underfoot – a new haibun by Gerald England
UnderfootAfter tea I notice the magpie again. It is on the driveway, looking around. It waddles up to the rose tree which has a number of hips visible among the branches. It turns, crosses the footpath and on to the lawn.Before disappearing into the bottom of...
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.
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Blogs and news
Blogs and archived news from 2007 to 2020.
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Reviews
Archived reviews from 2007 to 2020.
Hilary Mellon reviews ‘In the Land of the Giants: Selected Children’s Poems’ by George Szirtes
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David Cooke reviews ‘An Unscheduled Life’. Joseph Horgan (Words) & Brian Whelan (Pictures)
An...
Adam Horovitz reviews Daniel Sluman’s ‘Absence has a weight of its own’
Daniel Sluman's first collection,...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
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