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

Mariah Whelan

      St Ann’s Square Manchester, 23rd May 2017 Because I cannot show you what is at the centre of all this I will lay language up to its edge, walk its edges the way I moved through the back of the crowd too afraid to go in. I had to shade my eyes from all the light spilling from the square’s pavements, bursting from the shiny pink balloons and piles of lace-edged hearts. There were white roses heaped on the steps and daisies dripping from the fountain, sunflowers spilling over the stone slabs. There were more flowers than people— so many the crowds had to step back to let in HGVs and transit vans, men pulling roses from the backs of lorries shaking their bald heads and wiping roses from the corners of their eyes, speaking in quiet voices that were roses, too. And why not pile flowers on the stone floor, why not pile stems, string and plastic— things that can be held and understood? No matter how I try to turn this afternoon, no matter how I try to touch it, press it,...

Marissa Glover

    What Might Have Been There is a small white house high on a green hill just south of Scotland, an office bright with books and a window overlooking Magdalene, and somewhere on a dirt road between endless pastures of strong red fescue, is a man on a motorcycle—drenched in the day’s sweat like a soldier returning from battle, coming home to me.       Marissa Glover lives in Florida, where she’s swatting bugs and dodging storms. Her poetry collections, Let Go of the Hands You Hold (2021) and Box Office Gospel (2023), are published by Mercer University Press.

Cherry Doyle

/ on the days / blood rushes at the corner of a nail / you cannot keep your jumper off the door handle / table tackles leg / expect the bruise in two days’ time / pansies nodding in speckles of rain /

Jennie E. Owen

and in that last moment
the dead shrug, shake
off their boots, shuffle off
jackets and shirts,

Max Wallis on ‘The Aftershock Review’ for Mental Health Awareness Week

What Happens After the Aftershock?

Previously featured

Stuart McPherson

All My Friends Are Getting Sick Resisting arrest within six-sided isolation channels neatly stacked. All flesh is woodworked; index finger to thumb pinched in gluey press Blister pack resentment, as gospel song, as holy hands conjure heavy touch. Our future a...

read more

Nora Nadjarian

   Nora Nadjarian is a Cypriot poet and writer who has been published in international anthologies. She has won prizes or been commended in international competitions, among others, the Plough Poetry Prize and the Live Canon International Poetry Competition 2020....

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

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Word & Image

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Filmpoems

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Featured Poetry/Prose of the Day

Mariah Whelan

      St Ann’s Square Manchester, 23rd May 2017 Because I cannot show you what is at the centre of all this I will lay language up to its edge, walk its edges the way I moved through the back of the crowd too afraid to go in. I had to shade my eyes from all the light spilling from the square’s pavements, bursting from the shiny pink balloons and piles of lace-edged hearts. There were white roses heaped on the steps and daisies dripping from the fountain, sunflowers spilling over the stone slabs. There were more flowers than people— so many the crowds had to step back to let in HGVs and transit vans, men pulling roses from the backs of lorries shaking their bald heads and wiping roses from the corners of their eyes, speaking in quiet voices that were roses, too. And why not pile flowers on the stone floor, why not pile stems, string and plastic— things that can be held and understood? No matter how I try to turn this afternoon, no matter how I try to touch it, press it,...

Marissa Glover

    What Might Have Been There is a small white house high on a green hill just south of Scotland, an office bright with books and a window overlooking Magdalene, and somewhere on a dirt road between endless pastures of strong red fescue, is a man on a motorcycle—drenched in the day’s sweat like a soldier returning from battle, coming home to me.       Marissa Glover lives in Florida, where she’s swatting bugs and dodging storms. Her poetry collections, Let Go of the Hands You Hold (2021) and Box Office Gospel (2023), are published by Mercer University Press.

Cherry Doyle

/ on the days / blood rushes at the corner of a nail / you cannot keep your jumper off the door handle / table tackles leg / expect the bruise in two days’ time / pansies nodding in speckles of rain /

Jennie E. Owen

and in that last moment
the dead shrug, shake
off their boots, shuffle off
jackets and shirts,

Max Wallis on ‘The Aftershock Review’ for Mental Health Awareness Week

What Happens After the Aftershock?

News

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Word & Image

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Filmpoems

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Previously featured

Stuart McPherson

All My Friends Are Getting Sick Resisting arrest within six-sided isolation channels neatly stacked. All flesh is woodworked; index finger to thumb pinched in gluey press Blister pack resentment, as gospel song, as holy hands conjure heavy touch. Our future a...

read more

Nora Nadjarian

   Nora Nadjarian is a Cypriot poet and writer who has been published in international anthologies. She has won prizes or been commended in international competitions, among others, the Plough Poetry Prize and the Live Canon International Poetry Competition 2020....

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

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Reviews

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.