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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
Karen Hodgson Pryce
Islay: Your last holiday As he fixed scales in Port Askaig, paid in single malts and country charm, we loitered, impostors on an island farm. All at sea on a serenity of sheep, we played monopoly, box tatty and frail. Its missing chance cards, no...
Nicole Knoppová
Bird of Prey Mami, I find myself wishing your memory were a bird of prey— red-tailed hawk or black vulture, just as long as the talons dig, long as edges curve into outstretched fingers. Oh to pierce through that final blur, I’d prize any...
Ali Murphy
One Winter’s Line Between underpants and saggy bra, she hangs her fallopian tubes out to dry. They dangle like a pair of tan tights, dancer’s legs in the wind. She bends, reaches inside the basket, mistakes her vagina for an old sock. She...
Harry Gunston
Night night knocks inside my dream at the end of the world death house where sawdust covers everything. i am fortified with evening rubble. there are even rooms that repeat themselves as poor excuses or after-dinner cigarillos in a bag of night...
Alison Wassell
Pleasing Evelyn Battersby Evelyn Battersby was a difficult woman to please, an easy one to disappoint. When her children brought their gifts on silver salvers she would sniff, wrinkle her nose, send them back to the kitchen. The paintings of...
‘Burglaries’ by Darren Deeks is IS&T’s February 2024 Pick of the Month. Read and listen to it here!
Loss captured beautifully. This poem was absurd, gritty, weird, clever. It made people cry but had a humorous touch. Some felt it was about grief, some about getting old, others about being taken advantage of. And for all these reasons and more, ‘Burglaries’ by Darren...
Isobel Williams
If you’re asking how to get invited If you’re asking how to get invited To draw at a sex club It’s fair to say You’ll never get invited to draw at a sex club But here’s a tip: try to board a bus, Get sandwiched in the closing doors Because the driver hasn’t...
Kayleigh Jayshree reviews ‘Makeover’ by Laurie Bolger
Makeover by Laurie Bolger is a sizzling, dissolving snapshot. It’s a sticky but persistent moment in time. Laurie Bolger is a talented poet and narrator, with clear strengths in imagistic and narrative writing. Her work reminds me of Cecilia Knapp, Rachel Long,...
Mimi Kunz
Mimi Kunz is a visual artist and poet who lives in Brussels. Her work appeared in Hedgerow, a journal of small poems, La Piccioletta Barca, Ellipsis, MoonPark Review and elsewhere. More...
Clare Currie on Mother’s Day
After learning about the maternal instincts of seals, I took to listing postpartum offensives a hen pecks a king cobra a wildebeest confronts a cheetah five lions are attacked by a ballistic giraffe a monitor lizard suffers a wild pig bite a...
Charlie Hill
Nowhere to run to What was he running from? Well what have you got: the blood-soaked news of course, theme parks, leaf blowers, HR, but also the language that had somehow begun to seem more violent, more violently banal, more unfit for purpose...
Kayleigh Jayshree
https://youtu.be/_Z7fcrHxVrA https://youtu.be/_Z7fcrHxVrA Seaglass, Flint and Jasper Never doing things by half, or in order, seaglass for the colour of her eyes, flint for the man who builds furniture to fit her poetry, they ran to catch the last bit of...
Jane Wilkinson on International Women’s Day
Queen Conch My spirit animal is a sovereign sea snail. A part-time anchoress, anchored to her cell. Mindful custodian of the tender parts. Chapel of the heart, where fragility is treasured. I distil to flesh and shell. A starfish clambers aboard...
Kayleigh Kitt
Licensing Applications received at the Local Council for Permission for Community Events Henry leafed through the applications on his desk, sighed, picking up the first one. * Application no. 56/438/b Activity/Description: Cheese rolling. A large...
Today, 6th March, is Ghana’s Independence Day. We are behind Kobi Essah Ayensuo, our new Editing Intern, as they and many others gather to protest against the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ bill. Read their poem connected to this subject, ‘The Year of Return’, here.
The Year of Return In 1962, 5th year of Ghana’s birth, 2 MP’s fail to assassinate President Kwame Nkrumah who shouts “Long live African independence!”, Kojo Besia stay in hiding, whilst Grandmother stands still, lengthy, sturdy. Beehive combed and poofy holding...
Jenny Moroney
Buildings Clogged heavens the aeroplanes criss-cross through what was imagined there and in a far way land someone is capturing a landmark on their phone. From crumbling mountains masses in multitude trundle towards cities where we look to which...
Marc Janssen
At the Limit after Tympan by Jacques Derrida Took a needle to a dictionary. It dispersed like confetti Iron and shackles drifting away on air Leaden engraved words set alight Stuck a needle in a dictionary, And found a limit. A moment. A second. A...
Edward Vanderpump
Found text from: The Spoken Arabic of Iraq (American Mission, Basrah 1917) Lesson 1. The Ship Goes Against the Water Why do you speak against me? If you wish to learn Arabic you must live among the Arabs. There are soldiers all around the town. I...
Glenn Hubbard
Seacoalers. Lynemouth. 1985. A novel harvest of the seashore (Caught By The Camera. No. 27. 1935) Around the hooves of the blinkered horse the sea recedes with a zishhhhhhhhhhh. The cart stands axle deep in seething water. The blade emerges...
Kushal Poddar
Remember Nirvana? Nevermind The child resurfaces. The morning has no colour yet. Some smoke signals sketch a message of constant and calm distress. A neighbour see the child first. It toddles, skids and falls on the dew wet street. The child...