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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
On the Seventh Day of Christmas we bring you Ellora Sutton, Sue Burge, Catherine Naisby
The Angel Gabriel Visits Mary in Bedlam (Ecce Ancilla Domini!) After Dante Gabriel Rossetti look at the dove so wide a suicide against the wall wrap it up in the blue cloth I’ve been keeping it unwrinkled for such a purpose long blue...
On the Sixth Day of Christmas we bring you Sarah Salway, Sharon Phillips, Pat Edwards
Christmas is the end of the world It took some adjusting but we’re looking forward to it now. Next door have hung the bunting out, lines and lines of LOVE and PEACE which would have cost the earth until we realised there was no point in money any...
On the Fifth day of Christmas we bring you Beth McDonough, Sarah L Dixon, Liz Lefroy
Decorate our tree in ASD From Here to Epiphany I must wear four scarves, touch-whispery in tinsel, to wrap – no – not quite tight enough to cover the trunk in shine. Let me leave the room for my staccato happenings, test flickerings of white wee...
For our 12 days of Christmas feature we bring you Word & Image from Debbie Strange.
sudden flurries the Christmas star inside every persimmon Haiku written originally for Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, 2020 Holiday Celebration Debbie Strange is a chronically ill short-form poet whose work has been widely published internationally. Her book, The Language...
On the Fourth day of Christmas we bring you Louise Taylor, Diana Cant, Helen Kay
Noel After Sasha Dugdale Christmas is coming. December is amber with last month’s leaves and fairy lights flutter in the high street. The fir tree beside the Buttercross is naked, fenced-off by railings anyone could topple – and, look, here they...
On the Third Day of Christmas we bring you D.A. Prince, Tanya Parker, Maggie Mackay
Advent Why wait? the supermarket asks (you know which one) when puddings ooze expense and calendars for Advent spill indulgence. Down the street festive lights jitter and twitch. Each day is inching shorter. Wood pigeons strip the hedgerow holly...
On the Second Day of Christmas we bring you Lindy Barbour, Michelle Diaz, Hannah Stone
Christmas at the Poundland Plaza Under a concrete sky heavy with snow a zig-zag disabled access path leads from the car park to the mall across the Poundland Plaza. Hot air escaping through the sliding doors spirals a drift of balance statements...
For our 12 days of Christmas feature we bring you Word & Image from Helen Pletts & Romit Berger.
my father wears a yellow mask my father wears a yellow mask leans into the wooden staff —a farmer’s gift from Dartmoor— years before. His legs unsteady, my legs unsteady, perhaps autumn already knows our quest for apples, led us here to this shelf lined with...
On the First Day of Christmas we bring you Rebecca Gethin, Alicia Byrne Keane, Daniel Hinds
Solstice This is the shortest light we have to live with and in every minute we feel the life left in its stem and the slow pulse of its fluids keeping the plant of the day just enough alive. Rebecca Gethin has written five poetry...
Helen Scadding
Minority Listen with owl ears. Can you hear the worn words? we stand for the law abiding majority We forgot they kept them stored in loops on broken cassettes the mob needs to be stopped now they unfurl themselves opening like unwelcome flags we will keep putting them...
Ankit Raj Ojha In Praise Of ‘Strokes of Solace’ by Sanjeev Sethi
The title of Sanjeev Sethi’s sixth book of poetry, Strokes of Solace, proclaims a promise. And Sethi delivers, singing the universal human comedy from a personal vantage point while sprinkling seasoned balms along the way. The collection is a quest for healing,...
Poet Brwn Girl in the Ring
woodland creature cool breeze soft damp air meander inspect each leaf specks of sunshine every wrinkle in the bark mushroom cups squashed together wedged and piled high bumpy cosy textures sprout from the sinking green moss the under crunch...
Armando Allan
Untitled (1977). Oil on canvas, 19 x 16 inches. After Luchita Hurtado You’ve heard it said that sun ate into the black hills, cut the landscape into rag-cloth and tied the scraps together till all was light and skin. But there’s still the question of your wound,...
Sufia Humayun
The First Drop of Monsoon Rain They wait for the rain Looking up through hats Crisp shorts crack underneath soaked tops A yelp of mother and Flip-flops drag them back indoor Sun blows fire like a dragon and mocks Wind takes a different turn and mock back Stifling sun...
Craig Dobson
The Greek Beach Brighter than a full moon on the sea, their acetylene torches cut the night. Scrapped hulls scream as they’re born again. Masked men tear wrecks they joyrode ten years back, cut up truck hoods and corrugated sheets, hammer spent shell cases,...
Sara Fogarty Olmos
Amalgamation I’m sitting on the train with you and I’m telling you about my new job. You wouldn’t believe it, I tell you, I’ve fasted for days and pledged my celibacy and still god is no where nearer than he was before. I tell you about the children and how they blow...
Stuart McPherson
All My Friends Are Getting Sick Resisting arrest within six-sided isolation channels neatly stacked. All flesh is woodworked; index finger to thumb pinched in gluey press Blister pack resentment, as gospel song, as holy hands conjure heavy touch. Our future a...
Nora Nadjarian
Nora Nadjarian is a Cypriot poet and writer who has been published in international anthologies. She has won prizes or been commended in international competitions, among others, the Plough Poetry Prize and the Live Canon International Poetry Competition 2020....
Liv Aldridge
A cross lights up in the distance, a bird skeleton. We roll by faith my inhale dry like the hoarse wind in the lungs of a chainsmoker. Bruised night skies and a flatpack cross over factories. Where does it come from? Does it cascade down on...