Tough Poets Review is a biannual print journal featuring the work of critically engaged writers and artists who elaborate upon the legacy of their medium. We publish work that is grounded in an irreverent ethos with the aim of generating conversation that goes beyond exposition and instruction. Tough Poets believes this approach can be applied to our collective experience to confront the world with defiant optimism.
Submissions are now open for our inaugural Fall 2025 issue. We welcome submissions of previously unpublished fiction, poetry, plays, nonfiction, visual art, and photography.
Submission GuidelinesFind us on Instagram: @toughpoets_review
Click on cover image for details.
2025
April 23, 2025 / The Empyrean Path
Glass Century - In Conversation with Ross Barkan
April 22, 2025 / The Pensive Pejorative
Ross Barkan's Glass Century and Some Thoughts on the New Romantic Movement
April 16, 2025 / The Millbrook Independent
Post-Modern Turgenev: A Revoew of Thimas McGonigle's Diptych Before Dying
March 29, 2025 / Decentralized Fiction
Novels Should Be Beautiful Objects
January 31, 2025 / Leaf by Leaf
Contrapuntal Prose Ballet: Video review of Michael Brodsky's Invidicum
2024
October 29, 2024 / The Collidescope
Canis Major: The Last Interview With Domício Coutinho
October 28, 2024 / The Collidescope
Incredible Revelations of an Earthworm by Domício Coutinho
October 18, 2024 / City Journal
Caught Up in the Drift:
On a reissue of Thomas McGonigle's classic anti-novel, Going to Patchogue
August 31, 2024 / The Collidescope
Earthly Time: A Rare Interview with Thomas McGonigle
August 22, 2024 / The East Hampton Star
Once More Unto Patchogue
July 1, 2024 / The Northern Review of Books
Review: Bughouse Dope: Selected Essays & Articles by Maxwell Bodenheim
May 8, 2024 / Nasty
Agape Lodge Poetry Society: In conversation with Vanessa Matic
April 30, 2024 / The Collidescope
Magic Theatre: A Rare Interview with James Fritzhand
February 29, 2024 / The Collidescope Podcast
Infinite Fecundity: A Rare Interview with Michael Brodsky
2023
December 30, 2023 / The Collidescope
Review: Sweet Adversity and Those Drinking Days by Donald Newlove
December 5, 2023 / World Literature Today
75 Notable Translations 2023 (Knut Hamsun's Edttor Lynge)
November 30, 2023 / The Mockingbird Sings
Michael Brodsky's Invidicum Part One
Consciousness as a Sledgehammer: Michael Brodsky's Invidicum Part Two
For the Sake of Darkling Playfulness: Michael Brodsky's Invidicum Part Three
September 24, 2023 / The Collidescope
Review: Movieland by Ramón Gómez de la Serna
June 2, 2023 / Publishers Weekly
Review: A Tale of Five Cities and Other Memoirs by Joyce Elbert
May 30, 2023 / The Complete Review
Review: Encyclopedia by Richard Horn
April 20, 2023 / Jokopost.com
Following Virginia Woolf: Gulliver's wife's diary (Review of Oh, Gulliver!)
April 7, 2023 / Big Other
Announcing the Finalists for the 2022 Big Other Readers' Choice Award (Honorable Mention)
March 6, 2023 / Exacting Clam
Reviews in Brief: Early Stories and Fables by Alexander Theroux
March 1, 2023 / The Collidescope
Stigmata of the Intrinsic Lesion: A Rare Interview with Michael Brodsky
February 28, 2023 / Neglected Books Publisher Spotlight
The Flutter of an Eyelid (Tough Poets)
February 5, 2023 / The Collidescope
Review: The Sweetmeat Saga by G. F. Gravenson
2022
November 17, 2022 / yourArlington.com
Arlington Micro Press Announces Release of 50th Book
September 27, 2022 / Rain Taxi Review of Books
Review: Movieland by Ramón Gómez de la Serna (Reviewer: Richard Kostalanetz)
August 21, 2022 / Books of Some Substance Podcast
Review: Alexander Theroux's Fables (Guest: George Salis)
August 12, 2022 / Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review: A Tale of Five Cities & Other Memoirs The unjustly neglected Joyce Elbert reminiscences about being a woman novelist in a man's world. (Reviewer: Kathleen Rooney)
April 30, 2022 / The Collidescope
Without a Phartsmone: An Interview with G. F. Gravenson
April 29, 2022 / Lost Modernists
Interview: Dr. Jack Mearns on John Sanford
March 2, 2022 / The Artifa[ctuals]
Yesterday's Burdens: America's Forgotten Ulysses
2021
December 31, 2021 / Travel Through Stories
Review: The Secret Service by Wendy Walker
December 27, 2021 / The Review of Uncontemporary Fiction
No Apology or Cuteness: On Gil Orlovitz
December 10, 2021 / LitReactor
Small Press Xmas Lit Tour
December 3, 2021 / A Brief Chat podcast
Rick Schober of Tough Poets Press
November 19, 2021 / Los Angeles Review of Books
The Long Half-Life of Proletarian Prose: On Michael Gold and Maxwell Bodenheim
November 5, 2021 / Genealogies of Modernity
Stories on the Side of Grace: Review of Alexander Theroux's Early Stories
September 22, 2021 / Los Angeles Review of Books
The Burden of History in John Sanford's Make My Bed in Hell and The Land that Touches Mine
September 2, 2021 / ArtsJournal
In Praise of Donald Newlove
August 27, 2021 / The New York Times
Donald Newlove, 93, Dies; Novelist Explored the Depths of Drink
August 20, 2021 / Publishers Weekly
Author Donald Newlove Dies at 93
June 4, 2021 / Los Angeles Review of Books
Prisoners of the Page: On Myron Brinig's The Flutter of an Eyelid
June 1, 2021 / The Collidescope
Fame and Famine: A Conversation with Marvin Cohen
May 21, 2021 / Boog City
Discovered Treasure: Gregory Corso’s Collected Plays are the Thing
April 22, 2021 / The East Hampton Star
Splenetically Yours: Review of Speaking in an Empty Room: The Selected Letters of John Sanford
April 18, 2021 / The Collidescope
What Heartbreak the Wind Will Bring: An Interview with Donald Newlove
April 11, 2021 / The Neglected Books Page
Review: The Flutter of an Eyelid by Myron Brinig
April 5, 2021 / Glenn Cole Russell
Review: Gulping's Recital by Russell Edson
January 18, 2021 / European Literature Network
#RivetingReviews: Johanne Elster Hanson reviews Children of the Age by Knut Hamsun
January 7, 2021 / Boston Globe
New England Literary News: A new book of plays by the Beat poet Gregory Corso
January 7, 2021 / Eclectica Magazine
Corso But Even More So (Review of Collected Plays)
January 6, 2021 / Please Kill Me
Gregory Corso: Street Punk & Beat Turned Poet & Playwright
January 4, 2021 / Alta Journal
The Pleasure-Seekers: Myron Brinig's The Flutter of an Eyelid is the great lost classic of Los Angeles literature.
2020
November 21, 2020 / inchoatia
Review: The Flutter of an Eyelid by Myron Brinig
July 6, 2020 / Midwest Book Review
Review: Romance & Revolution by Vanessa Matic
June 17, 2020 / The Book Beat
Review: Ceremonies in Bachelor Space by Russell Edson
May 10, 2020 / inchoatia
Review: The Hungry Girls and Other Stories by Patricia Eakins
March 5, 2020 / yourArlington.com
Arlington press to publish Nobel Prize winner's novel
2019
December 11, 2019 / Making Book
This is what I'm talking about
December 2, 2019 / The Collidescope
Review: Gulping's Recital by Russell Edson
November 22, 2019 / Publishers Weekly
The One-Man Press Resuscitating Forgotten Classics
October 18, 2019 / The Collidescope
Imaginary Beings: An Interview with Patricia Eakins
July 28, 2019 / The Collidescope
Thrill of the Hunt: An Interview with the Founder of Tough Poets Press
February 26, 2019 / Please Kill Me
Overcoming Adversity: A Drunk's Redemption
January 26, 2019 / inchoatia
Review: Sweet Adversity by Donald Newlove
January 21, 2019 / Fiction Writers Review
Dystopias Future and Past: Demolition Night by Ross Barkan
2018
November 2, 2018 / inchoatia
Review: Confessions of a Nowaday Child by Erje Ayden
October 10, 2018 / Medium
The Long Winding Road to Publishing a Novel - Ross Barkan
2017
December 7, 2017 / Varsity
Review: Baseball as Metaphysics by Marvin Cohen
October 17, 2017 / Entropy
Small Press: Interview with Rick Schober of Tough Poets Press
June 12, 2017 / Fiction Writers Review
The Drumbeat of Society: An Interview with Marvin Cohen
2016
November 23, 2016 / The Village Voice
Surreal Genius: Why Onetime Literary Hotshot Marvin Cohen Deserves Another Look
May 11, 2016 / Jared A. Carnie Blog
5 Questions With Rick Schober
2015
August 1, 2015 / The Allen Ginsberg Project
Gregory Corso Interviews: Another of the summer's essential books
July 30, 2015 / i-Italy
Meeting a Beat in Paris: Fred Misurella recalls his 1976 interview with Gregory Corso, newly republished in The Whole Shot
March 12, 2015 / Best American Poetry
An Interview with Richard Schober, Editor of The Whole Shot: Collected Interviews with Gregory Corso
Tough Poets Press, founded by Rick Schober in 2015 and based in Arlington, Massachusetts, is a small independent publisher of new and rediscovered unconventional and neglected literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. We were featured in the November 22, 2019 issue of Publishers Weekly: The One-Man Press Resuscitating Forgotten Classics
Copyright © 20152025 by Tough Poets Press