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inksweatandtears.co.uk
Ink Sweat & Tears
@inksweatandtears.co.uk
530 followers 210 following 420 posts
Online poetry magazine posting daily. We publish & review poetry, prose, filmpoems, word & image and print publish as IS&T Press. Editing internships. Posts by Sairah Ahsan & Kate Birch.
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inksweatandtears.co.uk
Sarah Boyd's 'Finely balanced' captures the precarity of old age and the unrelenting task of attending to one's health.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/sarah-boyd

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of a heel worn through a grey sock. Text overlayed on photo reads: more holes than wool and 21st birthday watch that never stops. Title reads: Finely balanced. Bottom text reads: Sarah Boyd (C)
January 23, 2026 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Ink Sweat & Tears
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Samantha Carr's 'Unexploded Bombs' tackles the intersection of medical anxiety and medical gaslighting. @samc4rr.bsky.social

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/samantha-carr/

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of two capped vials of dark blood on a pale green background. Text overlayed on photo reads: You peeked through an aperture window at your liquid, viscous nature. Top left text reads: Unexploded Bombs. Bottom right text reads: Samantha Carr (c)
January 22, 2026 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Ink Sweat & Tears
ninearchespress.bsky.social
Thank you @inksweatandtears.co.uk & @jessmookherjee.bsky.social for your review of GREY TIME by @julwe1.bsky.social

'Elegy does not erase harm. Webb honours that contradiction.'
'Grey Time does not console. It stays. And that feels like truth.'

Read in full inksweatandtears.co.uk/jessica-mook...
January 22, 2026 at 10:27 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Yes!!!!!!
January 22, 2026 at 9:45 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Samantha Carr's 'Unexploded Bombs' tackles the intersection of medical anxiety and medical gaslighting. @samc4rr.bsky.social

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/samantha-carr/

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of two capped vials of dark blood on a pale green background. Text overlayed on photo reads: You peeked through an aperture window at your liquid, viscous nature. Top left text reads: Unexploded Bombs. Bottom right text reads: Samantha Carr (c)
January 22, 2026 at 9:33 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
@jessicamookherjee.bsky.social's review of 'Grey Time' by @Julwe1.bsky.social elegantly takes us through a collection which deftly deals with the emotional complexities of trauma, grief, violence and motherhood while remaining unsentimental

inksweatandtears.co.uk/jessica-mook...

#InkSweatAndTears
Photograph of a book cover. The cover is a greyscale photograph of trees reflected in a windowed wall, which has been rained on. Text on the cover reads: Grey Time. Julia Webb. Nine Arches press logo is also on the cover. To the right of the photo, text reads: “Grief in Grey Time becomes architecture, map, creature, weather.” “Webb resists elegiac polish, holding love, irritation, exhaustion and tenderness together in a finely shaped prose sequence. Its moral clarity lies in refusing to simplify.”
January 22, 2026 at 9:13 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Helen Akers' Window of tolerance' works 'to construct a frame' within which enormous disruptive emotion can be fit and analysed, putting therapeutic language in close conversation with grounded imagery.

inksweatandtears.co.uk/helen-akers/

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem #MentalHealthPoetry
Photograph taken from above of two people's hands. The first is holding a crumpled tissue, the second is holding a pen and some sheets of paper. Text overlayed on photo reads: lick it we're trying to expand the tolerance -- Top left text reads: Window of tolerance. Bottom right text reads: Helen Akers (C)
January 21, 2026 at 5:12 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Our latest word & image feature is three Plant Poems by @herr-morris.bsky.social. Each is a playful, flamboyant interpretation which provokes us to look at common foliage at a slant.

See them here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/steph-morris...

#NaturePoetry #InkSweatAndTears #WordandImage
Photograph of a risoprint of sycamore leaves. Many yellow leaves are aranged around a dark central leaf. On the most bottom left leaf the words 'flat blank hands halt it all' are splayed along each lobe of the leaf. Top left text reads: Plant poems. Bottom right text reads: Steph Morris (c)
January 21, 2026 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by Ink Sweat & Tears
jirobb.bsky.social
Chuffed that my poem is featured here today! Thank you to Helen Ivory and all at IS&T x
inksweatandtears.co.uk Ink Sweat & Tears @inksweatandtears.co.uk · 3d
Jenny Robb's 'Strange Brew' evokes a menacing presence within a family embodied through the mysterious character of Anne. @jirobb.bsky.social

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/jenny-robb-6/

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of three burnt matchsticks on a white background. Text overlayed on photo reads: My books become hers, my dolls answer only to her. Top left text reads: Strange Brew. Bottom right text reads: Jenny Robb (C)
January 20, 2026 at 12:09 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Jenny Robb's 'Strange Brew' evokes a menacing presence within a family embodied through the mysterious character of Anne. @jirobb.bsky.social

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/jenny-robb-6/

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of three burnt matchsticks on a white background. Text overlayed on photo reads: My books become hers, my dolls answer only to her. Top left text reads: Strange Brew. Bottom right text reads: Jenny Robb (C)
January 20, 2026 at 9:50 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
'I love the whimsical way this develops like a slowly falling snowflake'

Huge congratulations to @michelleadiaz.bsky.social whose poem 'Love Song for Snow' is the IS&T Pick of the Month for December 2025. To revisit the poem and for more voters' comments go to inksweatandtears.co.uk/december-202...
Background image: Snow and snowflakes. Text: Congratuations! Michelle Diaz Long Song for Snow IS&T Decemeber 2025 Pick of the Month
January 19, 2026 at 6:11 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Diane Webster's 'Revenge' sympathises with squirrels, embodying their hunger and wrath as something predatory.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/diane-webste...

#NaturePoem #InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of a cougar dappled in sunlight. Text overlaying photograph reads: midnight revenge twitches dreams as the cougar leaps... Top left text reads: Revenge. Bottom text reads: Diane Webster
January 19, 2026 at 9:45 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Bill Jones' 'Three Jackdaws' is a wry meditation on ritual as the speaker watches birds.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/bill-jones/

#NaturePoetry #InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of four bird feeders in a row. The outermost ones are enjoyed by bluetits. The central feeder is spilling golden-yellow seed. Text overlaying photo reads: a fat woodpigeon, pompous, hieratic, tried to undo their magic. Top left text reads: Three Jackdaws. Bottom right text reads: Bill Jones (C)
January 18, 2026 at 11:37 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Zumwalt's 'take this' serves justice to workplace politics with a humour which is wry and irreverent.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/zumwalt/

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem #OfficeHumour
Photograph of people laughing at a boardroom table. They seem disconcertingly happy. Text overlaying photo reads: you sidled up on the left: A clean lift. It was yours now. Top left text reads: take this. Bottom left text reads: Zumwalt (C)
January 17, 2026 at 10:27 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Anya Reeve's seasonal poem 'Walnut' enrobes a pip of liveliness kept within brutal winter imagery.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/anya-reeve/

#InkSweatAndTears #NaturePoetry #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of a knot in wood. Text overlaying photo reads: The cold an outward skin to glove A sacred, futured inwardness. Top left text reads: Walnut. Bottom right text reads: Anya Reeve (C)
January 16, 2026 at 11:29 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
John Grey's 'Your Town' calls attention to what might be mellow and existential within a jovial scene in a local pub.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/john-grey-4/

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of a local pub bar. Text overlayed on photo reads: there is no more this is it - . Top left text reads: Your Town. Bottom right text reads: John Grey (c)
January 15, 2026 at 11:13 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Antony Dunn's 'Plainsong' melds the past with future as its speaker wryly considers their death.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/antony-dunn/

#FeaturedPoem #InkSweatAndTears
January 15, 2026 at 11:11 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Light is abundant in Lesley Curwen's 'Valentia Light', offering both protection from and disguising the dangers of an anticipated storm. @elcurwen.bsky.social

Watch it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/lesley-curwe...

#FilmPoem #InkSweatAndTears
January 14, 2026 at 4:34 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Alex Scarborough's 'Hiking' considers alternative ways of mapping space, time and our relationships to others. @ascarborough.bsky.social

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/alex-scarbor...

#FeaturedPoem #InkSweatAndTears #NaturePoetry
Photograph of a forested mountain ridge with a monarch butterfly in the foreground. Text overlayed on photo reads: I want to ask in the ridges in your face would soften. Top left text reads: Hiking. Bottom right text reads: Alex Scarborough ©
January 13, 2026 at 8:36 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Submissions are open for [email protected] until the 15th only with particular interest in submissions for our Holocaust Memorial Day feature where we hope to platform work which remembers the Holocaust and other genocides.

#OpenSubmissions #HolocaustMemorialDay
January 12, 2026 at 8:10 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Myra Schneider's 'Cloud' uses the titular word to launch us from its technological associations into the age and tradition of the Romantic poets.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/myra-schneid...

#NaturePoetry #Wordsworth #InkSweatAndTears
Photograph of a big fluffy cloud catching red-orange light, against a rich blue sky. Text overlayed on photograph reads: sucking in water vapour until heavy as milk udders. Top left text reads: Cloud. Bottom right text reads: Myra Schneider (c)
January 12, 2026 at 9:30 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Sef's poem provides pause to consider the body and its containment, as it exists in multitudes. @seaandfog.bsky.social

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/sef/

#InkSweatAndTears #FeaturedPoem
Photograph of a person's shadow cast over concrete by warm, natural light. Text overlayed on photo reads: The body gives you life. The body is at the centre. Bottom left text reads: Sef (c)
January 11, 2026 at 10:31 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
It's time to choose the last IS&T Pick of the Month for 2025. Will December's be Toby Cotton, @michelleadiaz.bsky.social, @greeningpoet.bsky.social, Paula R. Hilton, Usha Kishore or @fionalarkin.bsky.social. More at inksweatandtears.co.uk/december-202...

#InkSweatandTears #PickoftheMonth
Image (to the right) of red berries on a bare branch against a blue sky and snow on the ground. With a VOTE stamp bottom right. Text: IS&T December Pick of the Month * Toby Cotton *Michelle Diaz *John Greening *Paula R. Hilton *Usha Kishore *Fiona Larkin
January 10, 2026 at 4:15 PM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Wayne F. Burke's minimalist poems contrast freedom with containment and limitation, presenting images of youth and potential, and bright, sonorous music.

Read them here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/wayne-f-burke/

#FeaturedPoem #Haiku #InkSweatAndTears
Photograph of light glinting off a bicycle bell. Text overlayed on photo reads: golden finches rise and fall. Top left text reads Haiku. Bottom right text reads: Wayne F. Burke (c)
January 10, 2026 at 9:50 AM
inksweatandtears.co.uk
Jon Miller's atmospheric 'Moving In' appreciates both the disquieting and comforting realisation that a new home is haunted by its previous inhabitants.

Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/jon-miller-4

#FeaturedPoem #GhostStories #InkSweatAndTears
Photograph of a distressed interior with exposed plasterboard. Text overlayed on photo reads: a cataract woven by funnel-spiders; a car roob-box full of barbells. Top left text reads: Moving in. Bottom right text reads: Jon Miller (c)
January 9, 2026 at 10:10 AM