‘Ink, Sweat, and Tears’

By Sakshi Rawal

Edited by Lizzie Alblas

This post is written by a member of The Letters Page team, who would like to recommend to fans of our work another journal which you may enjoy reading.

When my father was twelve years old, he used to work at a paper mart. He spoke only in his mother tongue, Gujrati. Although English wasn’t his first language, he was determined to master it. He couldn’t afford to buy books in English and those were rare to come by in the rural town of Jamnagar in Gujarat. In his spare time between sorting out old magazines and stacking newspapers, he would sit down with a tattered copy of ‘The Great Gatsby’ and attempt to learn.  

Funny how times have changed.  

I remembered this anecdote the other day, when I was sitting in the tram in Nottingham, reading a poem by a Zimbabwean artist online on Ink, Sweat and Tears. That’s the beauty of literature I suppose. It’s ability to connect people, no matter how different, around the world. Ink Sweat and Tears is a UK based webzine which publishes prose and poetry via submissions from budding writers. Owing to its massive digital presence, the journal is accessible to anyone who has an internet connection and a device to read on. They are also consistently active on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which means that even if you’re not very tech savvy, you can still catch up on their exciting upcoming projects which is how I discovered some amazing poetry for #NationalPoetryDay2021.   

However, if you are a sucker for the feel of paper in your hands, then you can head to their shop and purchase some of the literary pamphlets published by them. They have published a number of anthologies by very talented writers, one of them being Jay Bernard’s The Red and Yellow Nothing. As I’m studying Jay Bernard as part of my university curriculum, it was a wonderful opportunity for me to read some of his other work as well.  

When I look back and think about my father, who walked for an hour each day to work at that paper mart, just to read a book in a language he couldn’t understand, I am constantly reminded how far we have come. Today, with a mere touch of a button, I can have access to poetry from a completely different continent. It is simply at my fingertips.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Letters Page team are back in the office, and ready to read your real letters again. We publish stories, essays, poems, memoir, reportage, criticism, recipes, travelogue, and any hybrid forms, so long as they come to us in the form of a letter. We are looking for writers of all nationalities and ages, both established and emerging.

Your letter must be sent in the post, to :

The Letters Page, School of English, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK.

See our submissions page for more information.

To stay up to date on The Letters Page newsletter publication, subscribe here.