Hello
you have found your way here from an old link.
You can search here to find things or browse by category or post.
You can also visit the IS&T archive
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
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...
Philip Rösel Baker
Grieg, the Pianist and the Listener Troldhaugen, Norway Her fingers lightly assertive, she searches out meaning, concealed on the stave, feeling his music’s contours, the way a breeze explores the scribbled score of a rock-strewn escarpment, a...
LGBT Feature with Elizabeth Gibson, Jay Whittaker and Rob Miles
Syncing Sometimes it feels near again, when I jump and mime alone in my apartment to Taylor Swift, after an hour on my upright bike high on sweat and night through open window, gulping water, filling a void, thinking of new-ironed pale-green bedsheets, but...
Francesca Brooks
To Sleep To sleep well the body must start embellishing decorated sheets pots too, and postcards painted gilded gleaming Francesca Brooks is a writer and researcher, living in Manchester and working at the University of York. Francesca’s poetry...
Kayleigh Jayshree In Praise Of… ‘Bright Fear’ by Mary Jean Chan
In Praise Of: Kayleigh Jayshree Reviews Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan The title of this collection has never felt so poignant. As the years get more and more sweltering, and queer people’s rights become discussed as if it’s a matter of opinion, I feel...
LGBT Feature with Jaime Lock and Simon Maddrell
Jaime Lock is a poet from the Isles of Scilly. They have poems published by fourteen poems, Under the Radar, Signal House Edition, Broken Sleep Books and others. Simon Maddrell has appeared in AMBIT, The Moth, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, Stand, Under the Radar...
LGBT Feature with Helen A Porter, Kat Dixon and Milla van der Have
Helen A Porter grew up in Scotland before moving to America as a teenager. Porter is openly queer, and was exposed to the beauty behind the nature, culture, and stories of individuals Helen met along the way that continue to...
Francesca Brooks
Debbie Strange
Pride / Prejudice a truth universally acknowledged Debbie Strange (Canada) is a chronically ill short-form poet and visual artist whose creative passions connect her more closely to the world and to herself. Thousands of her poems and...
LGBT Feature with Godelieve de Bree, Casey Garfield and Anna Maughan
buffoon after Anne Carson in no way, at all, was i supposed to - fuck you - enough months - and pints later - a conversation about bishop - air thick like gelatine - we both knew - we could get away with it - like a theft from a corner shop - a...
Anthony Lusardi
on a dead deer the highway asphalt. reeks of exhaust and burnt rubber. the cars and trucks go by. the sun boiling and you rotting. an eye fixed on a sea of green beeches. only one of your antlers unbroken. pointing up to the mountains. does your herd still...
Sophie Kearing
hay sometimes i miss those carefree days of driving around listening to crucial conflict and fucking in funeral homes so i dream of you calling my name in an airport Sophie Kearing is a writer of stabby words but also warm wishes. Her work has...
Alison Jones
Oracles Each year I am looking for signs, a white pebble, a dropped feather, shy shadow’s shape, red thread burning, how the beans fall in bright patterns, a walnut’s voyage in a silver bowl, sailing a birthday candle through night waters. I must hold...