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.
John Short
Trap Pardon me ringing you but all my friends are dead. It’s strange to be sitting here in the place where I was born and no longer know a soul. They were sand through...
Ian Heffernan
The Graveyard of the Old Asylum East Lane, Leavesden At autumn’s trailing edge I walked there, Found it just where I recalled, Near the jink of a country lane. And seen...
Laura Muetzelfeldt
Returned by Angels Mum said her purse was Returned by angels. When she was excited she sang when she spoke. I nodded as she added, Fell out of the sky. That’s what the...
Ezra Miles
Empire The river has called for you. You step onto the light of day as you climb out from a granite tunnel carved from the mantle. The water has formed small grey pools...
Olivia Walwyn
Clematis One by one its pale buds lift like Chinese lanterns to splutter into soft-edged stars the stamens within thin spurts of fire - sparks feeling in to the dark green...
Jessica Walker
Hive To The Operators Again I punched your number into my phone so hard I think that you heard the thuds and dial tones. As when you answered after one sharp ring you didn’t...
John Grey
10,000 Men So there you were, in the Casino, at the roulette wheel with a stack of chips in front of you and, you said, ten thousand men looking over your shoulder all breathless from...
Matthew Paul
The Dice-box The list of Bartholomew Marsh’s creditors encompasses several senior ministers of his Lordship Liverpool’s government, an earl, a duke and two bishops. He places on...
Lynn Tammadge
Late Nights A smokeless jazz club is a garden scrubbed clean. Three girls are drumming their nails on wine-stained tables, percussion to purple tunes, ticking a rhythm that barely...
Sally Festing
The Long Swim The pool’s pure Hockney – cool, sapphire & super-real. Virginia creeper blots the retaining wall. Roses and walnuts spill from thorny burrs and a great leaf-spattered...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
A collaborative poem from Julia Webb and Maggie Mackay
Mothers I dream you alive, that I wake to find you flying round my bed. I am not surprised, though I remember your bulk, your papery skin, as if it were only yesterday. This new alive you is warm, soft and light as a tropical breeze. This new alive you...
Eliot North
My Mother Visits the Dissection Room She said she wanted to go there. So I pulled some strings, read her the rules. “Sensible shoes?” she said. “Yes Mother. Plus clothes you don’t mind ruined. Fixers, they don’t wash out. The smell will get you,...
Oliver Armison
Foxgloves 1. There’s not much you can say about hollyhocks. 2. Or are they foxgloves? 3. They’re tall, for instance. 4. Skyscrapers of the garden. 5. And they always appear in June. 6. Like big, extravagant yardsticks for the...
Aashna Nagpal
Somewhere on the moon I have been trying to decipher your thin smile, a shaky bridge between your ears. Those eyes, slits- blocking away the truth, with a look of longing, search for stars beyond your skin. The way you chaliced your palms when it rained,...
Oliver Comins
Some Data and a Little Insight There’s no one here whose heart is still to break - Roddy Lumsden after Po Chü-i No-one’s heart in that room is waiting to be broken for the first time and no-one is standing here, among the quiet men, whose long...
And the Pick of the Month for July 2016 is Theophilus Kwek’s ‘Psalm 19 ‘
It was a particularly powerful and emotional shortlist this month out of which Theophilus Kwek's transcendent 'Psalm 19' emerged as the overall winner. Theo is the author of three collections, They Speak Only Our Mother Tongue (2011), Circle Line (2013), and Giving...
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
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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.
David Mac's 'Sleeper'
The Sleeper he stalked thru the world feeling the flowers as he ran every time he lost it it was usually...
Peter Daniels reviews 'Modern Love' by Max Wallis
Max Wallis Modern Love Flipped Eye (Flap pamphlet series no.5) £4.00This sequence takes a year of finding love and...
Fiona Sinclair reviews Maria C McCarthy's 'Strange Fruits'
Maria C. McCarthy, Strange Fruits, Cultured Llama Publishing, 2011.Maria McCarthy’s new collection Strange Fruits is...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
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