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.

Joel Moktar

by | Jun 19, 2018 |

    reverse shadows after a photograph by Eiichi Matsumoto charcoal scars and tired wooden slats both man and ladder seared to shade here where the air is steeped in the memory of fire...

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Michelle Wareham

by | Jun 18, 2018 |

        Bottled eyes I am here in this hover of flowers counting eyelashes and fingers and toes, before I knew it I couldn't breathe for I lost my heart in the quivering pollen....

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Sue Spiers

by | Jun 15, 2018 |

    Wider When Standing After Les Murray Lower gravity means less weight and a woman is wider upright. Phonophobia is a natural fear of loudness. You may fear your own voice. Norway is the...

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Richard Lewis

by | Jun 13, 2018 |

      Whales   I know not to tell you that one day you'll be better, so instead I tell you this: We are blue whales, we lie solitary on the ocean floor, looking up at a surface...

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Julia Stothard

by | Jun 12, 2018 |

      Sick Leave I tip the whole dark tray night gave me into the trash and tie the sack having woken with a gutful of aching uncertainty and wishing a white sail for sickness. I call...

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Pat Edwards

by | Jun 11, 2018 |

      Coffee shop blues   Chalkboard announces all the different brews of scented loose and bagged up tea, of aromatic coffee ground from beans.   There are sugared buns and...

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Patrick Wright

by | Jun 9, 2018 |

      Aubade The sun gives the curtain the look of love, its light through a bride’s organza, as I leave your rapid eyes and wonder how far you’ve gone with the tramadol. Somewhere...

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Poetry Picks

Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019

Ruth Stacey

Apr 27, 2016 | ,

  Mental Health Animals Between us your depression and my anxiety; such slippery things to articulate – yet I try. You, a creature sat curled into himself, naked, muscled, not a weak man but a hare-man. Arms folded, long ears and face drooped: blocking out...

Stuart Charlesworth

Apr 22, 2016 | ,

      But During the Medicine Round A tablet missed the medicine pot and skittered across the clinic room floor. I picked it up, rolled it between my fingers. It was not a gelatine pod or a chalky pill. Thin, leathery roots hung from its bottom. Two...

Andrew McDonnell

Apr 16, 2016 | ,

      Me, Me, Me Sometimes I feel like a stranger in the town called Me. I enter a bar and all the other me fall silent. The barman is familiar, he reminds me of me when I was younger. “Shandy” I say and he shakes his head without speaking. “It’s funny”...

Sarya Wu

Apr 13, 2016 | ,

      Palindrome Existence Sometimes when I feel alone, So I find a clean bus stop to stand by and wait, Perhaps the bus will remind me Of where to go Maybe it's fate- I contemplate. Maybe it's fate- Of where to go Perhaps I'll know if I sit still So...

Anthony Wilson

Mar 30, 2016 | ,

    The Future My children think they know you as they prepare statements to gain entry into the next of what you have in store. They return each night with requests for homework and parties which bulge in their bags indistinguishably. Perhaps you look on...

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.

Interviews

Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.

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