Three open windows, a desk and a chair. The image is framed by a wood flooring. Title: 'Unexpectedly'. Quote: 'My neighbour opens her window for fresh salty air.' Poet: Tim Dwyer.
In Tim Dwyer's 'Unexpectedly', an open window seems to set in motion a chain reaction that offers hope.
inksweatandtears.co.uk/tim-dwyer-4/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
Sound wave framed by a photograph of water waves. Title: Postscript. Quotes: 'I drain each clip of hiss and static, nip and trim all hum and crackle' and 'bind them in crisp audio winding sheets and set them sailing off through cyberspace.' Poet: Paul Moclair.
'Postscript' by Paul Moclair contemplates how the essence of someone, in this case their voice, can resurface and be shared after death.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/paul-moclair/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
A cup of tea in a ceramic mug. Title: Cup. Quotes: 'Sometimes words are the only thing that get you through, But not the words you think,' Poet: Susan Elizabeth Hale.
Susan Elizabeth Hale's poem 'Cup' ponders the most useful words and what they have in common.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/susan-elizab...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
View from inside Sacre Coer Cathedral looking out over the city of Paris. Title: Candlelight. Quotes: 'We lit a candle for you that day in Sacre Coeur, under its white-flame dome as high as Paris could go and still be Paris,' Poet: Seán Street.
'Candlelight' by Seán Street commemorates someone dear who is not named in the poem but remembered vividly through shared experiences in Paris. @seanstreet.bsky.social
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/sean-street-3/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission #SacreCoeur
What's not to love about a nature walk? Marjory Woodfield's poem 'Inventory of a Walk' takes the scenic route. Her speaker names lush flora and fauna and has small conversations along the way.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/marjory-wood...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission #NatureWalk
Scenic North Wales Coastal Landscape View. Title: Draenog. Quotes: 'He was wandering across fields and streams, and then what seemed like forever along a winding lane.' Poet: Ian Seed.
In @ianseedauthor.bsky.social's 'Draenog', it's as if the speaker wanders through the fields and streams of his own memory to recover a forgotten word.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/ian-seed/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
A border of bricks and a slate square in the centre. Title: Tabula Rasa. Quote: 'Rectangular, with corners cut off like an octagon, muddy brown shows through the cream exterior where the edges are chipped. Just the right height for a young child learning to stand.' Poet: Sue Wallace-Shaddad.
@suewallaceshaddad.bsky.social's 'Tabula Rasa' poem shifts in perspective as the speaker grows. First only the cut corners are visible, next the surface and what the table can hold. @Sue_SWS
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/sue-wallace-...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission #TabulaRasa
Close up of a cracked wall surface but also looks like a cracked egg. Title: How many blows does it take to crack an egg. Quotes: 'If you don't know, I should tell you, an egg Is what they call the girl inside the male mask When she doesn't even know she's got it on Doesn't even know its there' Poet: Cally Ann Kerr.
On #InternationalTransgenderDayofVisibility, we have Cally Ann Kerr's poem 'How many blows does it take to crack an egg?' where she explores what it takes to break through a false exterior to reveal her true self and what comes next.
inksweatandtears.co.uk/cally-ann-ke...
#InkSweatandTears
Continuing our theme of #ColouringOutsidetheLines, we have 'The Music That Lives In Me' by Angela Yausheva, a filmpoem that takes the viewer around the city exploring the speaker's relationship and inner music.
View it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/angelayaushe...
#InkSweatandTears #FilmPoem
Multi-coloured balls of sheep wool with white lamb-shaped heads. Title: SURREAL SHEEP. Quote: I sell the postcard of multi-coloured sheep over and over again. Poet: Sue Moules.
Sue Moules' poem 'SURREAL SHEEP' is a reminder, like the postcard at its centre, of the need for whimsy in the midst of routine.
inksweatandtears.co.uk/sue-moules-2/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission #PostcardPoem
A woman examining medication bottles at home. Title: Unmedicated. Quotes: 'I carry grief. I carry the memory of when we were happy. I carry it unmedicated.' and 'Not because I am stronger but because some truths live in the body.' Prose Writer: Layla Sabourian.
'Unmedicated' is a personal essay by Layla Sabourianan, an Iranian author in exile. She explores what it means to hold the complexities of her life in Iran and abroad and asks how to 'end tyranny without becoming it'.
inksweatandtears.co.uk/layla-sabour...
#InkSweatandTears #Prose #Submission
Woman in the sea. Smiling and touching her neck. Title: Brine. Quotes: 'There was salt in my kisses. It preserved us for a while, resisted the putrefaction. Skin on sea-stained sheets.' Poet: L Kiew.
'Brine' by L.Kiew is a love poem, full of sensual imagery and eros that starts at a pebbled beach and lingers long afterwards.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/l-kiew-6/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission #LovePoem
Four women wild swimming in cold water. Title: Hurst Reservoir. Quotes: 'Heads raised high against the tiny vicious waves.' and 'Crazy women some might say but we laughed with the joy of it, almost cried'. Poet: Margaret Baldock.
Margaret Baldock's poem 'Hurst Reservoir' charts several women's joyous adventure as they push past the edge and let go of limitations.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/margaret-bal...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission #WildSwimming
Man kneeling at a place of worship with Buddhist prayer beads around his hands. Title: Sanctum Without God. Quotes: 'You did not reach for me.' and 'You did not need to. Devotion is a self-inflicted posture.' and 'I learned the angles of you --' Poet: Krishh Biswal.
Krishh Biswal's 'Sanctum Without God' does not offer an ecstatic or romantic view of worship but instead grapples with the discipline of faith once façades have fallen away.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/krishh-biswal/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
Joyful child playing in winter snowfall. Title: 'Buried'. Quotes: 'That winter the snow kept rising, a slow white wall climbing the windows each morning untouched, the whole world muffled under it.' Poet: Tamara Salih.
If you grew up with long snow-filled winters, then Tamara Salih's poem 'Buried' may transport you back to that place of childhood building and imagination. This is a warm and inviting poem with luminous details.
inksweatandtears.co.uk/tamara-salih/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry
#SnowPoem
Apples on a tree branch covered in ice. Title: Bureaucracies of Water. Quotes: 'A ghost apple is something the name of which I keep forgetting' and 'so I call them glass apples instead, which is more what they look like.' Poet: Alicia Byrne Keane.
Alicia Byrne Keane's poem is one where the science of an event adds to its mystery. In fact, everything described in relation to ghost apples becomes an enigma, like frozen water formed around an absence.
inksweatandtears.co.uk/aliciabyrnek...
#InkSweatandTears #GhostApple
Man holding wheelbarrow with a bucket of mortar. Title: THE APPRENTICE OF GROUNDHOG DAY. Quotes: 'Each wrinkle he laid as mortar on a wall. More bricks, more weight.' and 'All this was an experience'. Poet: Gareth Culshaw.
Being a poet can feel like a lifelong apprenticeship. So in honour of #WorldPoetryDay, see Gareth Culshaw's 'THE APPRENTICE OF GROUNDHOG DAY'. Into the mortar everything goes - a metaphor for making poems.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/gareth-culsh...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry
A close up of Scottish Highland cows. Title: 'Wild Cows'. Quotes: 'Those full udders will slowly burst' and 'spitting milk onto the grass strands.' Poet: Jennie Howitt.
Jennie Howitt's poem 'Wild Cows' traces the pathway of surplus milk and its effect on the landscape. The speaker considers what this overflow could nourish.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/jennie-howitt/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
Field of tall grasses and a purple sky at dusk. Title: 'Killing Time'. Quote: 'at the cider farm, eight minutes before handover, we strike on feeding the donkeys -- and sprint towards the orchard,' Poet: Matt Bryden.
Matt Bryden's poem captures what happens in the eight minutes before a shift's end, a window of perceived possibilities. @methyst.bsky.social
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/matt-bryden-2/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
Close up of stems with thorns. Title: 'Thorny (One Sided Conversations No4)'. Quotes: 'to embrace you is like clasping a fist full of briars' and 'if your mouth was a envelope I'd lick it shut'. Poet: Colin Pink.
Desire and repulsion form the push and pull tension in Colin Pink's poem, that one is never far from the other makes it difficult to let even the thorniest of situations go.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/colin-pink-3/
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
Hummingbird hawk moth sucking nectar from a flower. Title: 'Hummingbird Hawk Moth', Quotes: 'What were these fairies called before we knew of hummingbirds' and 'I fancy Garden-sprite, Hoverling, tiny Vanguard from the Realm of Humm,' Poet: Simon Williams.
Simon Williams' poem 'Hummingbird Hawk Moth' is a spell. Each curious new name transforms Williams' light, velvety and whimsical subject.
@greatbigbadger.bsky.social
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/simon-willia...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
'succinct, modest, affecting portrait of a good but constrained life'
Huge Congratulations to Stephen Chappell whose poem 'At the Barbers' is the IS&T #PickoftheMonth for February. To revisit the poem and for more voters' comments, go to inksweatandtears.co.uk/february-202...
#InkSweatAndTears
Image of river, mountain and tall grasses at sunset. Title: 'On Diamond Hill'. Quotes: 'I didn't think of you once as I climbed' and 'but when the light poured through each stone step glittered'. Poet: Elizabeth Barton.
Sometimes the significance of a moment is only clear in retrospect. Elizabeth Barton's poem, 'On Diamond Hill', retraces the steps of its speaker into the quiet epiphanies that were missed during the initial climb.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/elizabeth-ba...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry
Wooden bench next to a leafy tree. Poem titles: 'Lavoisier's Law', 'Blackbird', 'Legacy'. Poet: Susan Jane Sims.
Today is Mothering Sunday, and each of Susan Jane Sims' three poems feature and reckon with the loss of a son as well as the permanence and impermanence of matter.
Read 'Lavoisier's Law', 'Blackbird' and 'Legacy' here:
inksweatandtears.co.uk/susan-jane-s...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
Domed ceiling viewed from below with intricate triangular glass at the top and curved spiral staircase going up. Title: Ceilings. Quote: the ceilings we are pressed beneath change in aspect and colour each evening they drop a little closer. Poet: Daniel Sluman.
Daniel Sluman's poem 'Ceilings' is both architectural and expansive while contemplating frayed belief and fissures in the realities that hang overhead.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/daniel-sluma...
#InkSweatAndTears
Orchid mantis on a branch. Title: 'Notes from nature on how to survive this'. Quotes: '1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog' and '2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches'. Poet: Farah Ali.
Thank you very much to Helen Ivory and Kate Birch of wonderful @inksweatandtears.co.uk for publishing my poem ‘Notes from nature on how to survive this’
inksweatandtears.co.uk/farah-ali/
#poem #poetry #nature #poetrycommunity #InkSweatandTears
Field with grass and bluebells. Title: Earth-bound. Quotes: 'where a woman lay down for half an hour' and 'one May afternoon on that sea of tranquility'. Poet: Vivienne Tregenza.
Vivienne Tregenza's poem 'Earth-bound' explores the visible and invisible impressions left by a woman daydreaming.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/vivienne-tre...
#InkSweatandTears #Poetry #Submission
Orchid mantis on a branch. Title: 'Notes from nature on how to survive this'. Quotes: '1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog' and '2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches'. Poet: Farah Ali.
In @farahauthor.bsky.social's poem 'Notes from nature on how to survive this', our environment has the cheat codes for just about everything. The question then becomes how to apply these tactics when the threat is emotional or undefined.
inksweatandtears.co.uk/farah-ali/
#InkSweatandTears
Two women of different ethnicities who look angry facing away from each other. Title: 'Poem as Instruction for How to Respond to an Insult'. Quote: 'Don't laugh' and 'Remember, it is always all in the eyes so take a long look'. Poet: Graham Clifford.
Graham Clifford's 'Poem as Instruction for How to Respond to an Insult' is part off-kilter guidance and part wild interpersonal ride. @gclifford1.bsky.social
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/41706-2/
#InkSweatAndTears
Garden and groundskeeper. Title: 'Cyclamen'. Quotes: 'I woke to workers with blades' and 'along the verge, yellow-jacketed'. Poet: Gill Horitz.
Gill Horitz's poem 'Cyclamen' implicitly asks the question of what it means to cut back vegetation, both that which is dying and trying to survive.
Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/gill-horitz-2/
#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
