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.
Iain Twiddy
The Conker Trees Wanging the stick up into the conker trees, it seemed like the best ones hung just out of range, bulging, like wrecking balls, unconquerable, unshifted by wind, their...
Martin Stannard
How Not to Start the Day One should avoid at all costs Ungodly hours such as 3.15 or 4.22 – You are not a night-watchman Unless of course you are a night-watchman In which case you...
Robert Etty
Powerless in Town at Half-Past Nine The pharmacist in her white coat and I are conducting a £4.99 transaction when the power’s cut off all over town. With her cash tray exposed...
Daniel Richardson
How did he do that? How do you know when you meet one, one of the good ones? The rule is, some people say, you don’t notice anything exactly but you get a sort of unusual...
Maggie Butt
Witch Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford A witch was bottled, and stoppered with wax in this ribbed and silvered scent-bottle. The hand-written ticket does not explain how she was...
Joan Mazza
Magician Master of misdirection, distraction, illusion, able to grab your attention, to hypnotize and amaze you with outrageous stunts, he points to respected figures while he...
Steph Morris
Early stages The ferns look happy, healthy and green in the damp gloom. The birches have grown strong stems to rise to the light, above the roofs. They must have craved nurture at the...
Clive Donovan
Dragonfly For five lively years it exists as a nymph, Reigning in the murderous rot of a pond, A terror to tadpoles and minnows it consumes, Fattening, quickening, gathering...
Nicholas McGaughey
The Slip This is the bay Where you walked into The sea. Today We bring a dog, Collared in a blue Silk bow, to get some air. I see you out there, A silver kite, trailing...
Paul Attwell
Blade A vacuum between school and college. Mournful of a lack of cash, I negotiated A chore. To stagger a scythe amongst Forestial grass, The iron ripping Vegetation. I was a...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
Iain Britton
Five Compression Poems - from special effects one look at her face | her eyes her blue tattoos | she steps onto no man’s land takes a deep breath & touches the hearts of last week’s stripped & searched cosmic-brokers of dreams | she...
Devon Balwit
servant of the living word a chill breeze pours over me from the night window, what baptism should have felt like had God existed when I was fully immersed, decades ago, in a Wisconsin lake, a disassembly and then a remembering, a being shaken...
Tom Stevens
Crossing the English channel by foot- I'll make Dieppe by tea-time. I push images of that great bolt of fluid streaming out of Shoreham sewage treatment plant, snaking towards Brighton beach, out of my mind, striding into the churned, murky...
Moray Sanders’ ‘In my father’s pocket’ is February’s Pick of the Month
Pick of the Month time and February's choice is 'In my father's pocket' from Moray Sanders. Moray has written prose with the support of Creative Future for some years; through them she then won a mentoring opportunity with New Writing South and has been working with...
Jessica Mookherjee for International Women’s Day
Stranger I’ll ask the Moon to do my dirty work. In the backwash I wonder if the Welsh God with his untidy name, painted her. I’m the colour of the rock. I’ll be a moon-glowing witch, with cloud-hands getting slowly drunk, as I shrink out of the...
Kim Whysall-Hammond
Broken cable In the middle of the bright Atlantic Floating on the swell between island volcanoes Looking past reflective surface tension To silvered gas bubbles beneath catching the light And across the issuing rift A long snake of data cable Broken...
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
Two taiga by Pamela Babusci
• Pamela Babusci is an American poet and artist living in Rochester, New York. She has illustrated several books, including Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor, and Taboo Haiku. Pamela was the logo artist for HNA 2003 in New York City and is the logo artist for...
Two haiga by Robert Wilson
• Robert Wilson is the editor of Simply Haiku - there is a hyperlink in our favourites list. We asked him about his haiga and he replied "I am an artist and a poet....blending the two was a dream come true. I was introduced to haiga years ago in the...
New haibun by Charles Hansmann
Homeland You dream I am dead and you visit me in heaven. It's a place we can't sink, like water so salty we float without treading. We cannot drown there even if we want to: there's no place else for the sodden soul to go. Even in...
Two haiga by CarrieAnn Thunell
• CarrieAnn Thunell (CAT) is an ecology and peace activist, backpacker, nature photographer, artist, poet, and amateur landscape artist/gardener. She edited the Nisqually Delta Review from February 2005 through to September 2007. She has appeared in over 82 journals....
Four haiku by Ken Head
1Data made holyhologram seasonswired lives2Nano-surveillancetime digitally splinteredfear is addictive3Millions of megabytes may make a pixelbut where is home4Somewhere in the heartof the derelict citya telephone rings• Ken Head lives in Cambridge, England. His...
Garden Notes
Garden Notes...its exotic scentbelies the primitive looksof the sweet brier rose• Charles Christian
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.
Fiona Sinclair reviews ‘A Radiance’ by Bethany W Pope
Part of this collection’s skill lies in...
James Naiden reviews ‘Pitch’ by Todd Boss
This poet’s first collection appeared from Norton in 2008 when he turned 40. It’s titled Yellowrocket, after the plant...
Fiona Sinclair reviews Adele Ward’s ‘Never-Never Land’
Never-Never land is a collection whose poems manage to be personal and yet at the same time have a broad appeal for...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
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