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.
Search the archive
Prose and poetry
Poems and prose published on the website from start to finish.
Jean Atkin
My grandmother teaches me Her flat swings through the mirrored door and we are wafted with mothballs. Her nylons hiss when she crosses her legs. Her shoes are mauve, with little...
Jane R Rogers
Pilates Retreat to Amazonia In focus – the edges of things – Like wiry mangroves, I contract to my toes imitating branches crooked bends. A backbreaking stance fixed there,...
Martin Johns
On a bus to LA Our pulse quickens, we get ever closer, as if by a conjurer’s hand, lanes multiply. Cars, RVs, trucks with mirror-silvered cabs power on past. In the distance...
Stuart Pickford
Mum’s Visit The quilt’s growing across the floor you say as we drive up the A1. The scenery’s your evenings at home: checking the phone for messages, drawing curtains. The...
Maddie Godfrey
When I Return to London It asks me how long I can hold my breath for I tell the city, that I invented drowning That I knew the ocean when it was only limbs / not yet a body...
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...
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...
World Poetry Day: Edwin Stockdale
Bruised Grass Hauled by a Cudworth Mail Engine, the South Eastern Railway express from Folkestone to Cannon Street grey-green like hawthorn. A lady and her companion in a...
Emma Lee
It was impossible to exit stage left (Princess Charlotte, Leicester) It's my stage. Framed by two speaker stacks, sounddesk either left at standard rock setting or frantically...
Neil Reeder
By Harrow Road Against dusk’s bands of scarlet-velvet light, a Jehovah's Witness clutches a crumpled Book of apocalypse, and glowers at a slammed front door. Behind her, part in...
Poetry Picks
Our favourite poems and ‘best of’ chosen from each month between 2007 and 2019
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga
Haibun, Tanka, Haiku, & Haiga reviously published on the website.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
12 Days of Christmas
All the poems from our regular 12 days of Christmas feature.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Words & Images
Words with images previously published on the website.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Blogs and news
Blogs and archived news from 2007 to 2020.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Reviews
Archived reviews from 2007 to 2020.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Interviews
Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.