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.
Helen Boden
Valley Town Streets lineate the hillside, terrace above the A-road and river. Houses, built for workers in whatever line went on because of the watercourse, and caused the...
Anne Ryland
In Her Bones I discover her just off Pier Road, sitting on the bench that overlooks the river. Draped on the wooden slats, right femur resting on left, Agnes is completely at...
Jo Dingle
Noticing how The snow has changed us, softened our faces, a glint in our eyes. We perceive other differently; perhaps because of the way we drove more slowly, appreciating the...
Simon Williams
Bone Chemistry Mr Dishman broke his wrist playing squash or chess or somesuch, but didn’t let it stop him with equations: acid-base, displacements, the Haber process. He learnt...
Joel Martyr
Grapes When I talk to you about making love I am talking about how two people reach toward each other — within the limits of what their bodies will allow — and attempt to...
Christopher Hopkins
Salting the skin The sea becomes the colour of whale skin & chalk. Hanging on a day, abandoned by the chalk light. A worm moon left its portrait under the drifting ebb, sketched in ridges...
Gale Acuff
Temptation I brought an apple to my teacher at Sunday School, Miss Hooker. I kept it in my jacket pocket until after class so none of the other kids could see me give it to her after the...
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois
Circular Saw We sat down at a table shaped like a heart. It reflected our mutual wish that we rekindle our love, which was as worn out as a Ford Fairlane abandoned on a...
Gill Horitz
Living Signs At night waiting in the dark I begin to think of a door half open on the unlived years already coming in. Dawns beginning earlier and earlier and more welcome than...
Cara L McKee
Before the Weighing Inspired by Jane Hirshfield’s The Weighing. Quietly now, divide your heart and feed the lioness before justice comes. It might not be the usual way. It is a...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
Daniel Roy Connelly
Des bons mots All things considered takes ages. If you could have it all would you leave it where it is? The path of righteousness leads to the corridor of uncertainty. Absence makes the heart look elsewhere. A problem shared is a problem still. Do things by...
Mike Farren
Electricity and void We are mostly electricity and void and, mostly, it suits me to believe matter illusion, time a mystery. But on this warm-cold night in early spring you lay your material, electrical void next to mine, and nothing is important...
Sally Long
The Door There is no door. How then to make an entrance? Perhaps a dramatic appearance; enter angel stage left, maybe flying in through the open window, or else strolling, nonchalant from the garden, surprising her as she sits at peace on the portico. But there...
James Parris
The Alchemist The house was strange without one. Corners where it could be swelled daily in their emptiness and threatened to topple the festivity. Contrary under her gaze, he determined that a squat bought thing just wouldn’t do, and, shedding skeptics, picked...
Joanne Key
Watching Tai Chi in the Park in December She casts her spells under weeping trees. Look down. You landed here by chance, lured by the festive glow of a ruined bandstand, caught up in a honeytrap of peeling paint and decay. You both come here to comb the air for...
Lana Bella
Eleven Years Tasted Like a Thousand Year Old Chinese Egg eleven years tasted like a thousand-year old Chinese egg doorway cracked windows rusted at the seams-- the nights grew thin and red summer gripped me in its fist then winter tricked your shadows into my...
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.
Book Review – Bobby Parker reviews Thought Disorder
Thought Disorder by Joshua Jones Published by Knives Forks & Spoons Press www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk...
Book review – Beverly Ellis says life's like that
The Piercing Blue of Sirius, Selected Poems 1968-2008 by Larry KimmelWinifred Press, USA, ISBN 978-0-9792484-7-4This...
Sarah Bower reviews a new collection of short prose from Unthank Books
Short, Sharp ShocksUnthology 1, Unthank Books 2010. £12 +p&pThis first in a planned series of short...
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
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