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
Fran Hayden
a friend messaged me:
“every time I see sunflowers,
I think of you”
Betty Doyle
Both cast out to sea, I wonder –
did your ashes ever meet?
It was under the same sun setting,
although years and miles apart.
Recent Prose
Recent Haiku
News
‘Beginner’s Italian’ by James Mason is the IS&T Pick of the Month for July 2026. Read and Hear it Now!
‘Personal, clear, relatable, precise, human. Poetry.’
‘I love it. It so accurately demonstrates the painfulness of those early days when your language competency is so limited that your personality feels suppressed!’
Word & Image
Helen Pletts and Romit Berger, Translated by Ma Yongbo
I placed my cold, white, thin fingers in the warm folds of catskin and hair but the cat spat and spoke dicer’s oaths, projecting catspittle through a small red toothless space,
Filmpoems
Zakia Carpenter-Hall
It had been such a long time… I was surprised by how gently my mother made my hair, asking if she should split the rows, my locs beginning to intertwine. She gently, as if using a miniature rake of a Japanese garden attends to the grove of my hair – so softly that it barely registers as touch.
I couldn’t imagine that she was doing it right, what with the absence of pain and discomfort, but she did, ordering and reordering, twisting my roots so they wouldn’t come loose and fastening them next to each other with silver clips for added strength, so they could dry.
Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day
News
‘Beginner’s Italian’ by James Mason is the IS&T Pick of the Month for July 2026. Read and Hear it Now!
‘Personal, clear, relatable, precise, human. Poetry.’
‘I love it. It so accurately demonstrates the painfulness of those early days when your language competency is so limited that your personality feels suppressed!’
Word & Image
Helen Pletts and Romit Berger, Translated by Ma Yongbo
I placed my cold, white, thin fingers in the warm folds of catskin and hair but the cat spat and spoke dicer’s oaths, projecting catspittle through a small red toothless space,
Filmpoems
Zakia Carpenter-Hall
It had been such a long time… I was surprised by how gently my mother made my hair, asking if she should split the rows, my locs beginning to intertwine. She gently, as if using a miniature rake of a Japanese garden attends to the grove of my hair – so softly that it barely registers as touch.
I couldn’t imagine that she was doing it right, what with the absence of pain and discomfort, but she did, ordering and reordering, twisting my roots so they wouldn’t come loose and fastening them next to each other with silver clips for added strength, so they could dry.
Previously featured
Fran Hayden
a friend messaged me:
“every time I see sunflowers,
I think of you”
Betty Doyle
Both cast out to sea, I wonder –
did your ashes ever meet?
It was under the same sun setting,
although years and miles apart.
Recent Prose
Recent Haiku
Picks of the Month
‘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’
‘Unexploded Bombs’ by Samantha Carr is the IS&T Pick of the Month for January 2026.
‘A very striking and thought provoking piece of work.’
‘I enjoyed how this reflected Plymouth’s landmarks (I’m from Plymouth) but also medical anxiety (which is a common theme in my life). Unsettling.’
‘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.
Reviews
Sairah Ashan Reviews ‘Unsafe’ by Karen McCarthy Woolf
Her words are thoughtfully presented. Her lyrics are philosophically dense. Most pages make liberal use of white space, providing pause to digest.
Emma Lee In Praise Of… Jeremy Dixon’s ‘The Beat The Pulse The Wave’
‘a lyrical collection that can be read either by watching the sunlight dance on the waves or diving below the surface to more serious messages and topics beneath’
Sue Johns Reviews ‘Something in Nothing’ by Zoe Brooks
Zoe Brooks uses all of these devices and more to create a superbly, dark narrative in her new collection Something in Nothing. Brooks is an assured storyteller whose work is steeped in the oral tradition.