Ink Sweat & Tears is a UK based webzine which publishes and reviews poetry, prose, prose-poetry, word & image pieces and everything in between. Our tastes are eclectic and magpie-like and we aim to publish something new every day.

We try to keep waiting-time short, but because of increased submissions, the current waiting time between submission and publication is around twelve weeks.

If you have come here looking for more information on our ‘Uprising & Resistance’ Project in conjunction with Spread the Word and Black Beyond Data, please go here.

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Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day

Maggie Mackay

Daddy’s girl, always. Tea done, you fetch Glen’s lead and we climb the hill to the spread of The Links. We talk. It’s as if we have met in a previous life, the click – you, a pipe smoking fan of Bertrand Russell, always think, think, and think the eternal puzzles of existence. Our walks are adventures in language, in invention, a form of The Great Egg Race without eggs.

Sarah Nabarro

Your smile
Woke something –
Up.
If you knew,

Mike Wilson

My reptilian brain calculates the minimum I’ll do to escape
the weight of obligation …

but before I finish the math, we regress into college kids
rushing the street Julia barricades with furniture
to keep out the law by breaking the law.

Allyson Dowling

Night drops by
In a coat of onyx and blue
Lights up his silver pipe
And asks how do you do…

Emily Veal

      boudicca you’re a brewery down the road i drank a bottle of your finest on the train back from bury st edmunds the red queen (no one will call you ginger) i see you everywhere realised you were also the wetherspoons round the corner the one with the strange toilets resembling a 1970s parlour at your spoons they won’t serve shots until after 8 until then they’re a family pub at night my dreams were on fire everything tinged with the cling of woodsmoke an elderly lady wrapped me in a woollen cloak her white whisps like a crown of candles against the amber she handed me a wooden cup and with a gentle hum invited me to the aecerbot1 before i could answer a fox ate her throat i guess it was a bad omen –   ______________________________ 1an Anglo-Saxon field blessing     Emily Veal is Birmingham poet who recently graduated with an MA in Creative Writing Poetry from UEA. Currently she lives in Staffordshire working as a Prison...

Previously featured

Mike Wilson

My reptilian brain calculates the minimum I’ll do to escape
the weight of obligation …

but before I finish the math, we regress into college kids
rushing the street Julia barricades with furniture
to keep out the law by breaking the law.

read more

Recent Prose

Alison Wassell

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.

Kayleigh Kitt

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 rinded cheese placed at the top of a hill. . .

Theo Stone

Into the Hills

. . . Every day he would wake up and rearrange his sense of self, renew his memories of the world before, and head back into routine in order to make the next paycheck. . .

From the Archives: Chaucer Cameron on Halloween

Sunday afternoon there’s always roast dinner. Then mum and dad go to church. The twins stay and wash dishes. Elder-twin picks up a plastic bag with unused Brussels sprouts inside. The cellar door is open.

Arthur Mandal

      Childhood’s Cave The worst times were Thursdays. They were the weekly meetings, when things were assigned, calculated, declared. A reprimand or an insult always brought her father home in the worst of moods. Her mother, on...

Recent Haiku

Anthony Lusardi

the highway asphalt. reeks of exhaust and burnt rubber. the cars and trucks go by. the sun boiling and you rotting.

Chen-ou Liu

snow crystals
on my neighbor’s windows …
Foreclosure askew

& more

Shasta Hatter

Empty Basket

Driving down the boulevard, I see large trees decorated with pink and white blossoms, evergreens tower over houses, trees flourish with spring greenery.

Jayant Kashyap

We are in the bath, your hands
around my back, mine around yours—
everything covered in a fog.

Short Poems Feature III

as a child, I learn to eat words

fill me up with words
brittle like sugared almonds
they crunch in my bones

Amaleena Damlé

News

Word & Image

Filmpoems

Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day

Maggie Mackay

Daddy’s girl, always. Tea done, you fetch Glen’s lead and we climb the hill to the spread of The Links. We talk. It’s as if we have met in a previous life, the click – you, a pipe smoking fan of Bertrand Russell, always think, think, and think the eternal puzzles of existence. Our walks are adventures in language, in invention, a form of The Great Egg Race without eggs.

Sarah Nabarro

Your smile
Woke something –
Up.
If you knew,

Mike Wilson

My reptilian brain calculates the minimum I’ll do to escape
the weight of obligation …

but before I finish the math, we regress into college kids
rushing the street Julia barricades with furniture
to keep out the law by breaking the law.

Allyson Dowling

Night drops by
In a coat of onyx and blue
Lights up his silver pipe
And asks how do you do…

Emily Veal

      boudicca you’re a brewery down the road i drank a bottle of your finest on the train back from bury st edmunds the red queen (no one will call you ginger) i see you everywhere realised you were also the wetherspoons round the corner the one with the strange toilets resembling a 1970s parlour at your spoons they won’t serve shots until after 8 until then they’re a family pub at night my dreams were on fire everything tinged with the cling of woodsmoke an elderly lady wrapped me in a woollen cloak her white whisps like a crown of candles against the amber she handed me a wooden cup and with a gentle hum invited me to the aecerbot1 before i could answer a fox ate her throat i guess it was a bad omen –   ______________________________ 1an Anglo-Saxon field blessing     Emily Veal is Birmingham poet who recently graduated with an MA in Creative Writing Poetry from UEA. Currently she lives in Staffordshire working as a Prison...

News

Word & Image

Filmpoems

Previously featured

Mike Wilson

My reptilian brain calculates the minimum I’ll do to escape
the weight of obligation …

but before I finish the math, we regress into college kids
rushing the street Julia barricades with furniture
to keep out the law by breaking the law.

read more

Recent Prose

Alison Wassell

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.

Kayleigh Kitt

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 rinded cheese placed at the top of a hill. . .

Theo Stone

Into the Hills

. . . Every day he would wake up and rearrange his sense of self, renew his memories of the world before, and head back into routine in order to make the next paycheck. . .

From the Archives: Chaucer Cameron on Halloween

Sunday afternoon there’s always roast dinner. Then mum and dad go to church. The twins stay and wash dishes. Elder-twin picks up a plastic bag with unused Brussels sprouts inside. The cellar door is open.

Arthur Mandal

      Childhood’s Cave The worst times were Thursdays. They were the weekly meetings, when things were assigned, calculated, declared. A reprimand or an insult always brought her father home in the worst of moods. Her mother, on...

Recent Haiku

Anthony Lusardi

the highway asphalt. reeks of exhaust and burnt rubber. the cars and trucks go by. the sun boiling and you rotting.

Chen-ou Liu

snow crystals
on my neighbor’s windows …
Foreclosure askew

& more

Shasta Hatter

Empty Basket

Driving down the boulevard, I see large trees decorated with pink and white blossoms, evergreens tower over houses, trees flourish with spring greenery.

Jayant Kashyap

We are in the bath, your hands
around my back, mine around yours—
everything covered in a fog.

Short Poems Feature III

as a child, I learn to eat words

fill me up with words
brittle like sugared almonds
they crunch in my bones

Amaleena Damlé

Picks of the Month

Reviews