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.

IS&T Shop

Buy Ink Sweat & Tears Publishing books and pamphlets here.

Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day

Ansuya Patel

Women scrape coins from their purse,
count pennies, one lifts up a watermelon
in mid-air like raising a newborn to light.

Pippa Little

a woman’s rage cannot raise the dead
but it may split stone like lightning

Abiodun Salako

a boy grows tired
of dying again and again.

                                                                                                                                       i am building him a morgue
                                                                                                                                                       for Thanksgiving.

Patrick Wright

It’s as if the dream
is telling me we are still joined
somehow, despite waking
and me trudging on, even though
your voicemail is off, your locks
changed.

William Collins

We carry the shame of Paragraph 352D
folded into suitcases at foreign borders,
where love is questioned like a crime,
and disbelief stamped heavier than visas.
They tell us to run for our lives —
but only if we can do it quietly.

Previously featured

Britta Giersche

a wooden door slams shut in my brain
a man perishes in a space the size of his grave from malnutrition eighty years ago

read more

Recent Prose

Stephanie Aspin on ‘Why Words Help’ for Mental Health Awareness Week

Writing is both a way of making life more liveable and of making ourselves more whole. Words have a being-ness: when we write poetry, we tap into a network of resonances.

Cheryl Snell

I am all hair, glittering with diamond-glass. A forehead streaked with blood, rubies and roses crisscrossing the tangerine flaps of a ripped collar.

Sarah Thorne

The darkening sky skids past at sixty miles an hour. My eyes are keeping a vigil over the dead fringes of tarmac either side of the road as I drive . . .

Arlene Jackson

Hello Tamara, it’s lovely to hear your voice stretching out across the Atlantic, from your eco pod of wellness into my quiet space, where things are not so well today. But it is today. New and fresh.

Recent Haiku

Chen-ou Liu on International Haiku Poetry Day

end-of-day catch
our wicker basket full
of salmon sunset

Deborah Karl-Brandt

With every book I sell, with every piece of clothing I give away . . .

Clare Bryden

how do I begin?

R.C. Thomas

The Universe dreamed I’d come to its restaurant. I needed to pass the time before my train home.

Anthony Lusardi

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

News

Word & Image

Nina Nazir

Nina Nazir

the egg woman
spends her days writing
she is alone again
she must find a way
to gather momentum

read more

Filmpoems

Ofem Ubi

Ofem Ubi

ANY LAST WORDS.
(Chapter 3 of film Back on Home Soil)

A friend says, grief leaves everyone behind
She ruminates on her words and goes grief leaves no one behind
It shows in the way grief leaves a fraction in memory…

read more

Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day

Ansuya Patel

Women scrape coins from their purse,
count pennies, one lifts up a watermelon
in mid-air like raising a newborn to light.

Pippa Little

a woman’s rage cannot raise the dead
but it may split stone like lightning

Abiodun Salako

a boy grows tired
of dying again and again.

                                                                                                                                       i am building him a morgue
                                                                                                                                                       for Thanksgiving.

Patrick Wright

It’s as if the dream
is telling me we are still joined
somehow, despite waking
and me trudging on, even though
your voicemail is off, your locks
changed.

William Collins

We carry the shame of Paragraph 352D
folded into suitcases at foreign borders,
where love is questioned like a crime,
and disbelief stamped heavier than visas.
They tell us to run for our lives —
but only if we can do it quietly.

News

Word & Image

Nina Nazir

Nina Nazir

the egg woman
spends her days writing
she is alone again
she must find a way
to gather momentum

read more

Filmpoems

Ofem Ubi

Ofem Ubi

ANY LAST WORDS.
(Chapter 3 of film Back on Home Soil)

A friend says, grief leaves everyone behind
She ruminates on her words and goes grief leaves no one behind
It shows in the way grief leaves a fraction in memory…

read more

Previously featured

Britta Giersche

a wooden door slams shut in my brain
a man perishes in a space the size of his grave from malnutrition eighty years ago

read more

Recent Prose

Stephanie Aspin on ‘Why Words Help’ for Mental Health Awareness Week

Writing is both a way of making life more liveable and of making ourselves more whole. Words have a being-ness: when we write poetry, we tap into a network of resonances.

Cheryl Snell

I am all hair, glittering with diamond-glass. A forehead streaked with blood, rubies and roses crisscrossing the tangerine flaps of a ripped collar.

Sarah Thorne

The darkening sky skids past at sixty miles an hour. My eyes are keeping a vigil over the dead fringes of tarmac either side of the road as I drive . . .

Arlene Jackson

Hello Tamara, it’s lovely to hear your voice stretching out across the Atlantic, from your eco pod of wellness into my quiet space, where things are not so well today. But it is today. New and fresh.

Recent Haiku

Chen-ou Liu on International Haiku Poetry Day

end-of-day catch
our wicker basket full
of salmon sunset

Deborah Karl-Brandt

With every book I sell, with every piece of clothing I give away . . .

Clare Bryden

how do I begin?

R.C. Thomas

The Universe dreamed I’d come to its restaurant. I needed to pass the time before my train home.

Anthony Lusardi

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

Picks of the Month

Reviews