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.

Ian Glass

      Shelter   It starts with a whisper, closing from the West ripples across stooped hills, grows grumbling to a moan.   Light dips behind low clouds; wind presses clothes...

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Stuart Buck

      On the Surface of the Moon   my friend tells me he cannot see the lights on the surface of the moon because there is a patch of the bad thing in his heart so I tell him to look...

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Adam Sear

    The Crowman   A thick haze of smoke still lay across the fields. From just a few yards away, the scavengers were all but invisible as they performed their grim, yet profitable...

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Jennie Ensor

      Thirteen Ways Of Looking At Orange After Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens   I With longing And sharp nails I consider the orange.   II Five oranges...

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Matt Bayliss

      chopped liver & love notes.   he stood inside the garage for most of September.   the mooring ropes had been cut loose and it was all being scraped out of him like...

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Craig Dobson

      The Art of Tipping    The Eastern European concierge can’t hide his billionaire-stare’s disappointment as the revolving doors deliver me: small change at the ready should my...

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Kitty Coles

      When I Heard The Trees Speak   I turned to see your face and it was still. So, to be certain, I took your hand and whispered, ‘Do you hear that?’ Blankly, you answered,...

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Poetry Picks

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

Bethany W Pope

  Midnight Illness   Home is only ever found in glimpses, the night-fragrance of a lover’s shoulder, the warm throb of the pulse beneath the skin of the throat, the green scent of trees captured in the pages of the right kind of book. You feel ‘home’ in a...

Jody Porter

  Heat   In these heat days when the sun displays a fiery godhead and ordains the liquefaction of Tarmac   and the deadest of nights bring a crackle of crickets and all the bedrooms burn in airless struggle   to turn the pillow then and face its...

Paul Burns

  bringing it home outside the pub the trees shone gold then ruby as the sun tried to leave. I held it up for long moments, clutching at its rays and its power to melt cars, helping them morph into the shapes of distant hills, or clouds looking out at the...

Abigail Beene

      Untitled    And I think that you think you understand a lot of things Things you just don't. Getting caught between the rhythm and home. But you see I'm only telling you this because I used to think I understood a lot and I just didn't I was...

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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