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
Previously featured
May Grier
I wasn’t to know
that it was a three-tusked
beast; that there was not one,
not two, but three
that grew the seed of me.
Daniel Hill
On her first day home, she took
to plucking the sky with tweezers—
latched on to clouds and waited
Recent Prose
Recent Haiku
News
‘At the Barbers’ by Stephen Chappell is the IS&T Pick of the Month for February 2026. Read and Hear It Here!
‘succinct, modest, affecting portrait of a good but constrained life’
‘simple but believable and moving, without being sentimental’
Word & Image
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
I am born of the folk of the tropical coasts,
salt-rimmed hands my inheritance. I trace
the vestiges of webs between my fingers—
folds printed with the pearlescent stripes
Filmpoems
Erin Coppin and Dr Jo Scott
British Columbia, Canada, 2021: We are surviving the vagaries of climate change
1. Heat dome: I’ve had to water my plants two times a day so they don’t die.
2. Five hundred and ninety-five people died as a direct result of extreme heat.
Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day
News
‘At the Barbers’ by Stephen Chappell is the IS&T Pick of the Month for February 2026. Read and Hear It Here!
‘succinct, modest, affecting portrait of a good but constrained life’
‘simple but believable and moving, without being sentimental’
Word & Image
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
I am born of the folk of the tropical coasts,
salt-rimmed hands my inheritance. I trace
the vestiges of webs between my fingers—
folds printed with the pearlescent stripes
Filmpoems
Erin Coppin and Dr Jo Scott
British Columbia, Canada, 2021: We are surviving the vagaries of climate change
1. Heat dome: I’ve had to water my plants two times a day so they don’t die.
2. Five hundred and ninety-five people died as a direct result of extreme heat.
Previously featured
May Grier
I wasn’t to know
that it was a three-tusked
beast; that there was not one,
not two, but three
that grew the seed of me.
Daniel Hill
On her first day home, she took
to plucking the sky with tweezers—
latched on to clouds and waited
Recent Prose
Recent Haiku
Picks of the Month
‘Love Song for Snow’ By Michelle Diaz is the IS&T Pick of the Month for December 2025. With Audio!
I love the whimsical way this develops like a slowly falling snowflake
The snow is always real, tangible, down to the pleasure of making a snow angel and the numbness of hands; the sense of personal loss runs like a watermark through it; and the grief we are beginning to feel for a planet we are overheating haunts us with its presence too.
‘A Cry’ by Mariam Saidan is the IS&T Pick of the Month for November 2025. Read and Hear It Here!
‘I have lived this. I believe every woman from Iran who reads her words will feel every line of the poems she writes.’
‘A cry that defies repression and a spirit that refuses to be silenced.’
‘Pivotal’ by Tadhg Carey is the October 2025 Pick of the Month. Congratulations! Revisit the Poem and Hear it Read Here.
‘Beautiful, subtle merging of that moment of sporting destiny and the creative process’
‘This poem captures the momentum of sport, the exhilaration and tension, whilst also almost imperceptibly focuses our attention on the mechanics of writing poetry.’
Reviews
Shannon Clinton-Copeland on Lewis Buxton
“Every poem in Mate Arias is a supporting column in the architecture of a tenderly rendered pantheon to friendship and the myriad forms of platonic love, particularly between men. The pamphlet is made up of twenty-three sonnets, each a vignette of affection, contemplation and memory.”
Chris Hardy on Quentin Cowdry
The poems are carefully structured in regular stanzas, with well-paced, rhythmical lines and deft use of enjambment. The various subjects and themes, which differentiate and unite the work, are built on close observation of the world, of nature and human experience, and how we relate to and respond to it.
In Praise of … Mat Riches on Robin Houghton
Given how much she does for the poetry community—the Planet Podcast series with Peter Kenny, her monthly submissions newsletter, her blog posts, her books on getting published, launching a publisher with other folks, etc., it’s heartwarming to see the attention being placed back on Robin’s writing.