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.

Richie McCaffery

  Asbestos Sure he smoked, but it was the asbestos that killed him. The men in suits came to remind us that back then the stuff was in everything and not to even think about pinning it on them....

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Chris Kerr

      Routine Comedy A wooden javelin, midway through my paunch, lost me my life. * I somersault in a tank of boiling blood with an arrow through my heart pointing ‘this way up’. The...

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Annie Wright

      Locked In (for Gordon) Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fût   (Images 1907, Debussy) And the moon goes down over the temple that was And the temple that was struggles for...

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Peter McCloskey

      Cheap Blue Biro Despite his worsening illness, the ritual my father indulges upon on us each year, the strangest of anniversaries, has not changed for many years. The day his...

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Ashleigh Davies

  Rib Picking You are seventeen, You are beautiful, and you Are the engine of life. Levelled on the hillside, Somehow upright, white-washed Wind-torn weather rock Mid morning and like it’s been...

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Fiona Inglis

      She’s nice, her. Not wanting. Some guy had said, not long into the exchange – although this was only worked out later with the help of a free online translation service. It had...

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Michael Paul Hogan

      After the Storm Wading knee-deep for six-pack and cigarettes I watch my feet, three inches from my knees, under a foot of water negotiate the curb. They look like two fish...

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Scott Blackwell

  When The Trouble Comes   it comes illiterate reading Soldier of Fortune magazine, but always to church on time, in its Sunday best, praying for world peace,   it comes bearing gifts...

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Poetry Picks

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

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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.

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Interviews

Archived interviews from 2007 to 2020.

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