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.
Ali Jones
The Mathematics of Past and Future Selves There’s a small child sobbing, oppressed in her Sunday best, red velvet dress, patent mirrors scuffed. There’s a bear, one eye...
Tom Kelly
Memory Stairs (Terry Kelly 1958-2016) It’s not a constant ache, more longing, email will suffice, something bridging this gap. I see your doppelganger in a city street: high forehead,...
Michael Bloor
The Night I Ordered the Smoked Eel It’s late, late at night and I’m sprawled on the couch watching a DVD of Mel Brooks’ ‘The Producers.’ Somebody says, in a low drawl, ‘Must you...
Anna Milan
Five Times 1 Mother rubs her eyes at the kitchen table. Says she’s drunk. The midnight light stares at me, and I wait for the shade of bed. 2 I am almost naked under a duvet...
UEA Poetry MA Scholars Amanda Holiday and Kirstie Millar
In 2011, IS&T publisher Kate Birch established the The Ink Sweat & Tears Poetry Writing Scholarship (MA) at the University of East Anglia (UEA); Kirstie Millar is its eighth recipient....
Jo Young on Remembrance Day
Of All the Extraordinary Gothic Places they settled you in this wild necropolis. Angels bruised with lichen and frantic ironwork fastening down the decades. I have come to find your...
Dennis Tomlinson
Danesbury Neurological Centre On a green hillside we found your clinic, wrote down our names at the day-bright reception, took the lift down to floor minus 1 - in a shared room you sat...
Peter Daniels
Home Truths Here are the woods, managed by a skilled crew, and one good straight birch picked out with a red stripe — is it condemned or chosen? Here are the characters: the...
Antoni Ooto
A Garden There was something I wanted to say, now, I can’t remember. Something about a garden and a young man’s terrible illness. Yes, a garden… Richard’s garden. Nights of planning,...
Gopal Lahiri
First Birth The two owls shout from the rooftop A hurricane of bats flies around, A father devours his own child in silence. The rising stars struggle to breathe in The first to go out...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
Mark Farley
Gleaning Mother wears the vines of summer, hawthorn hackles raised in grief. She’s my father’s stubborn mourner, pecking at his horehound leaves. Nurses scatter apple blossom, bleach is masked in meadow scent. Father burrows under holly, glossy spines can’t...
And the Pick of the Month for March 2017 is ‘Stranger’ by Jessica Mookherjee
Our poem for International Women's Day, Jessica Mookherjee's 'Stranger', has been voted as the IS&T Pick of the Month for March 2017, its mystical aura and the beauty of the language having seduced our readers. Jessica is originally from Wales now living in Kent....
Victoria Gatehouse
Velvet Shells After an installation by Suze MacMurray. They’ve passed the test - that tap from Chef’s blade, a glimmer of muscle from those still alive before the pile-up, blue and black, on a white plate. She imagines lovers scooping out wine-soaked flesh,...
Julian Dobson
Re-reading Theses on Feuerbach at the allotment I • Filthy as new potatoes freshly dug, muck on the hands is everything. II • My thoughts are solid: I imagine into life broad beans, Swiss chard, earthed leeks, curly kale. III • I practice...
Lucía Damacela
The Angel in My Cupboard The angel living in my cupboard doesn’t flaunt angel hair his mane looking rather like a spoonful of whipped cream cheese the angel hidden in my cupboard is most visible when the evening light penetrates the room through...
Jean Atkin
My grandmother teaches me Her flat swings through the mirrored door and we are wafted with mothballs. Her nylons hiss when she crosses her legs. Her shoes are mauve, with little heels. I trawl my fingers in the deeps of the rug, stir talcum...
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
Two haiga by Jeffrey Woodward
The first of these haiga is probably a bit of a sore point for people in the UK who have had to put up with a long, wet summer!• Jeffrey Woodward has also contributed some haibun to IS&T.
Two haiku by Juliet England
Rejection Dumped in Pizza Hut And it took me Four SeasonsTo get over it. Telephone HaikuOne four seven oneYou’ve no new calls to returnAnd no friends, either.• Juliet England is a regular contributor to IS&T
New haibun by Charles Hansmann
Seduction of the Poem I am talking you away from the lover who promised to be faithful – that isn't a typo, and that lover's still me. Get into the car. That's all that it takes. You're being talked to the place where nothing...
Two new haiga by Shanna
• Shanna Baldwin Moore is a teacher, poet and musician based on the Kona Coast of Hawaii, she describes her interests as wine making, painting and singing. She adds "I'm an old beat poet and have just found this form (haiga) in the last two years and am having...
Two tanka and one sedoka by Ken Head
Now the glue has dried,pages fall out easily.I have neglected the book and it smells of age.Decrepitude is winning.The ink flowed well thenwhen this brush was new and fresh.Laughable, I know,if you look at these old hands.Arthritis? What a bad joke.Dreaming of...
Two haibun by Jeffrey Woodward
The Water's Way Look into the shallow and winding stream. Water over stone, water over sand – what shall resist it? Light dances hither and thither on an eddy, now shimmering like spangles or sparkling like diamonds, now lancing the eye like a...
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.
Ken Head reviews Ross Cogan’s ‘The Book I Never Wrote’
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James Naiden reviews ‘Sky Thick with Fireflies’ by Ethna McKiernan
Third Book, Third Charm Sky Thick with Fireflies is Ethna McKiernan’s most recent...
Angus Sinclair reviews ‘House of the Deaf Man’ by Porter and de Freston
The term ekphrasis and its...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
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