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The archive is a separate site formed from all the posts from that original Ink Sweat & Tears website, it consists of everything we have published up to the end of 2019.
Recent posts
Anne East
Golden Shovel after Gwendolyn Brooks ‘We real cool’ A tribute to Khadija Saye 1992 – 2017 Gambian-British artist and photographer She bubbles laughter and we are captivated, caught by real joy in her happiness. So cool – I’m an artist! Rock my...
Andrew Blair
I want/do not want my daddy He is screaming and crying and wants Me and doesn’t Want me And is not sore and does not want medicine But does not want to stay In bed or get out of bed or go Downstairs or to the window And wants me to go away and...
Jaden Pierce
Bath Soak me in an acid bath As I seek to test my limits For pain I do not fear And want to conquer Like the great warriors who have Come before me Performing magnificent feats Showing mind over muscle Sitting in the midst of a blaze Yet calm and...
Jamie Woods
PTSD / IET Guidance Notes for Registered Electricians Too many residual memory devices Trip again, over and over Breaking circuits with synaptic transmission Neurons activating Molotov cocktails She says: Love yourself Be kind to...
Michael Durack
How Way Leads On To Way Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. (Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken) Knowing how way leads on to way, lane to avenue, boreen to boulevard, It is unlikely I will get to go back, take...
Sarah Terkaoui
Elegy for The Tumbledown Dick It burnt down twenty years ago. Landlord’s stealing ran it down. New management couldn’t fix a sticky-carpet sea of broken glass each night. Nor dare to clean the toilets. Dealers’ trade kept high in cisterns. Punters...
Shaniqua Benjamin
The Village after Ryan Calais Cameron A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth, skank around flickering amber hues that singe eyelashes of a soul cracked and popped, barely a speck of him to sign-point that he was...
Jay Mitra for Father’s Day
Lockdown Hospital Visit I’m used to seeing my father’s frown— he’s always been an angry sort of man. He demands respect, silences others and takes control whenever he can. My father and I were never close— there is a lot he hasn’t apologised for....
Michael Forester for National Flash Fiction Day
Fallen Hero First furloughed, then declared redundant by the Justice League, he is asked to hand back his cape and boots. His instinct is to seek immediate solace in the Fortress of Solitude, but it has floated away on a rising tide of...
Robert Hirschfield
Automat Chicken sandwich widow in a cave Edward Hopper edible so lonely it wants to bite off a piece of itself and eat it. * Nothing More To Say The stout aunt says, His coffin is small. He was small. Heaping upon him her scoop of dirt. ...
Sally St Clair
The Road Our father taught us kindness, bringing home speechless men to sit watchfully at the table, their wild hair and swollen fingers mysterious on the white damask, staring as our father gestured with the family silver, leaning in towards the...
Pletts & Berger
Chernobyl : past, present and future tense It all feels sepia; liquidator-faces filling the coach windows dust in the air, that grainy hue that will etch into their bones, scrape its mark on their lungs, turn their complexions a...
Meg Pokrass
The Forest This has something to do with the adoption of that unwanted animal, right there in the living room. Her husband watching telly, drinking beer, not looking at the animal dancing around. The animal gazing into her eyes, finding her...
Noel King
Burying the Husband As your hearse stretches the road we walk, trying to be respectful. My shoulders heave an ease at their freedom, my bruises will heal now there’ll be no fresh hits. Our feet turn, our bodies sideways themselves through the gap...
‘The Gods Are Addicts’ by Topher Allen is the IS&T Pick of the Month for May 2022
Creative thinking outside the box ...describes perfectly the effect that Topher Allen’s ‘The Gods Are Addicts’ had on voters and it is for this reason, as well as the poet’s voice, his perspective, 'fiery imagery and subversion of religious tropes’, that it is the...
Hannah Linden
By the Time I Learn about the New York School Poets I Can Walk Around their Neighbourhood Without Leaving My Living Room for SD It’s six thirty in the evening, going dark I’ve zoomed to the other side of an ocean been helped to understand what...
Olivia Burgess
April Showers In the spring, we wait on overblown grass, trading false promises of a golden summer. I cry at the sight of swathes of daffodils, parading their freedom in joyful orbits of propagation. I cry over exams because my heart’s poison is...
Stephen Claughton
Wu Zixu (after Hokusai) The warrior, Wu Zixu, tries his hand at writing poetry. Perhaps he thinks it won’t be exacting enough. Cocking his head to one side, he dips his pen in the ink, while at the same time holding a brass pot above his head....
Live zoom reading with Tom Sastry, Michael W. Thomas, Frank Dullaghan
Please join us on zoom for live readings Sunday 12th June at the new summer time of 7.30pm BST. This is part of our monthly award-winning ‘Live from the Butchery’ series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from their home (an old CoOp butcher’s shop),...
Meg Arnot
* her black eye . . . red scarf muffles the sting of the north wind * muddy gaiters – Coniston Water in my wardrobe * lamb in the talons of a white-tailed eagle time of the tide Meg Arnot’s haiku/senryu and tanka have been published...