Tough Poets Review 01
Edited by Kathleen Cullen & Rick Schober
October 15, 2025
ISBN 9798218776558 / Paperback / 188 pages / $20.00

In this inaugural issue, readers will find new stories by critically acclaimed debut novelists John Tottenham (Service) and Nini Berndt (There Are Reasons for This), a photo essay by the international performance artist Marcher Arrant, as well as interviews with novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer, and AIDS historian Sarah Schulman (The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity), Reclaim NYC activists and poet-artists HOMESICK and Damian Bielak, and writer Alejandro Heredia, author of the highly praised debut novel Loca.

Additional contributors:

Kali Abel, David Anderson, Finn Brown, Marsha Burger, Peyton Burgess, June Chua, Maureen Clark, Marvin Cohen, Holly Coleman, Richard Collins, Joseph Cooper, Emily Coppella, Will Cordeiro, Megan Davis, Charles Day, Sarah Rose de Souza, Jaydn DeWald, Brian Engles, Corwin Ericson, Rachel Desiree Felix, Nicholas Fillmore, Jefferson Fortner, Barry Foy, Justin Gradin, Samina Hadi-Tabassum, Erin Heney, Juleigh Howard-Hobson, Colin James, Robert Kinerk, Aaron Lelito, LindaAnn LoSchiavo, Vanessa Matic, Maisie May, Bruce McRae, Elinor Nauen, Martina Reisz Newberry, Per Olvmyr, Magdalen Papa, Larry Parker, Marie-Louise Plum, David Preizler, David Salner, Neal Allen Shipley, Mark Simpson, Abhishek Kumar Singh, J. D. Smith, Willow Sommer, Amy Soricelli, Johnny Stanton, Aden Thomas, Kevin Tosca, Edwin Vásquez, Wendy Walker, and Omar Zefier

"Tough Poets Review unties its trademark knotted pencil and lets its poets run wild in exhibitions of joyous free-range poetry. A magazine to keep your eye on."
— Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States (2001–2003), and Poet Laureate of New York State (2004–2006)

"Tough Poets Review feels like being surrounded by your most erudite, eccentric, forward-thinking artist friends—the kind of friends who question everything with intensity and whimsy in equal measure, and, in that process, open up new ways of thinking and being. Within its pages are flights of fancy and not-knowing that lead you to look at the world differently once you've put it down. And that is a rare and much cherished feat."
— Nihaarika Negi, interdisciplinary artist recognized at Sundance + WIF, Film Independent, the Venice Biennale, and the UK Arts Council; Berlinale Talent 2021; NewImages XR Festival award winner; and author of the graphic novel Hunger, which debuted at NYCC 2025

"Tough Poets Review is revolting—in the best sense of that word. The writers, artists, and thinkers in this debut issue are rebels to their core. Their work is alternately funny, smart, unpredictable, and startlingly honest. Think of this as the antidote to the AI-curated echo chamber of nonsense at the heart of a civilization on life support. In a future (better) world, this will be a long-lived journal."
— Alan Bisbort, editor of PleaseKillMe.com; author of Hip, Bohemian, and Counterculture: History and Legacies from 1830 to the Present

"Tough Poets Review is wild. It's cool, nerdy, committed, rich with DIY lineages—an impressive labor of love on the part of its editors, whose curatorial skills shine through in this cultural cornucopia. I came for the poetry but stayed for the conversations, the stories, the photographs, and the quietly powerful synergies that animate the issue. I hope Tough Poets Review will run and run . . ."
— Dr. Rona Cran, Associate Professor in Twentieth-Century American Literature at the University of Birmingham; author of Collage in Twentieth-Century Art, Literature, and Culture: Joseph Cornell, William Burroughs, Frank O’Hara, and Bob Dylan

"Urgent as a secret and true as a good joke, the inaugural issue of Tough Poets Review announces the arrival of an impressive and irreverent new literary journal and suggests that subsequent issues are not to be missed."
— Kathleen Rooney, founding editor of Rose Metal Press, founding member of Poems While You Wait, and author of Man Overboard!

"A bold move to bring out a print literary journal in these digital days, but Tough Poets Review is nothing if not bold. Its tough-minded poetry and prose come as a relief at this self-censoring, politically correct time, and the striking photographs and drawings aren't fawning for likes. Older readers may be reminded of the Evergreen Review in its heyday, and younger ones have a new journal worthy of their backpack."
— Steven Moore, author of The Novel, An Alternative History and My Back Pages: Reviews and Essays