Taylor Swift The Tortured Poets Department Fountain Pen Review: A $15 Gateway Into Fountain Pens

Introduction

Every so often, a product arrives that pulls a completely new audience into a niche hobby, and the Taylor Swift The Tortured Poets Department fountain pen is one of those rare cases. A superstar of this scale releasing an actual fountain pen as official merchandise is genuinely exciting for the writing community, because it may introduce thousands of first-time users to the joy of putting ink on paper.

The pen ties in with her 11th album, a record built on deeply personal songwriting, and a fountain pen fits that theme beautifully. Sitting down with a pen and working through your thoughts is exactly what this kind of music is about. Better still, it is priced at just $15, a price that shows real respect for fans rather than leaning on the branding alone. In this review we look at what the pen is made of, how it handles, and whether it is worth picking up for the Taylor Swift fan or the aspiring writer in your life.

First Impressions and Packaging

For $15, expectations are naturally modest, but the presentation immediately delivers. The pen arrives sealed in a paper box with genuinely appealing branding, including a lovely touch that frames it as coming from the desk of Taylor Swift. For a fan, that alone is worth the price of admission. The rear of the box carries a clean logo design along with a scan code, keeping the whole package feeling considered rather than rushed.

Design and Build Quality

Out of the box, you get a wood and brass fountain pen with a distinctive weight profile. It sits a little top-heavy uncapped, but the hardwood body feels warm in the hand in a way that plastic pens rarely do. The Tortured Poets Department branding and the Taylor Swift name are printed on the barrel, and because of the placement they are not likely to wear off easily, which is a nice detail for a keepsake item.

The polished brass cap top gives the pen a sophisticated, almost cosmetic-product look, a little like an elegant lip gloss case, and that aesthetic is honestly charming. The threads at the back allow the pen to be posted with the cap on the barrel, which restores a decent sense of balance for writing.

One thing to note for beginners: the grip section is a little slippery, and there is no defined finger stop to keep your hand from sliding toward the nib. Some writers will prefer to anchor their fingers on the threads instead. The threads themselves are a touch sharp, though not enough to spoil the experience.

Ink Setup: Getting It Ready to Write

The pen ships without the ink cartridge pre-inserted, a sensible choice to prevent leaking in transit. It does include a standard international cartridge, which is good news for beginners: these are widely available, easy to use, and come in a huge range of colors, so you can run red, blue, green or whatever suits your journal.

What the box does not include is instructions, and first-timers will need a little courage here. Unscrew the barrel from the grip section, then take the cartridge, which has a narrow end and a wide end, and push it firmly into the grip until it clicks into place. You do not need excessive force, but you do need to be decisive: the click punctures the cartridge seal and lets ink feed through by capillary action down to the nib. You will hear and feel a small pop, and then the cartridge sits securely. In testing, ink flowed to the tip almost immediately, so there is very little waiting time before your first stroke.

How It Writes

This is where the pen pleasantly surprises. The writing experience is very smooth and flowing, with a nib that looks like a fine or medium based on how it lays down ink. The pen is light in hand, which makes extended writing sessions comfortable, and it genuinely rewards a relaxed technique: let the weight of the pen do the work and simply guide it across the page. No pressure is needed at all, which is the core lesson for anyone new to fountain pens.

It is worth being honest about the origins here. This appears to be a fairly generic fountain pen, likely made in China, with a standard nib. That shows in details like the sharp threads and the step-down between the grip and the section. But the fundamentals are right: it inked up quickly, it writes smoothly, and it looks and feels like a much more personal object than its generic underpinnings suggest. There are more expensive fountain pens that do not write as well as this one.

The branding is the heart of the value. The Taylor Swift marking sits in a spot that will not easily wear away, and that alone makes this a meaningful keepsake for fans of The Tortured Poets Department.

Things to Consider Before Buying

If you have never used a fountain pen before, the lack of included instructions is the main hurdle, though the cartridge installation is genuinely simple once you know the push-and-click method. The slippery grip and the sharp threads are minor ergonomic compromises that experienced users will notice more than beginners.

There is also the collector’s dilemma: because this is tied to a specific album era, many buyers will want to keep it pristine rather than use it daily. If that sounds like you, it may be worth picking up a dedicated daily writer such as a Lamy Safari, a Pilot Metropolitan, or a TWSBI Eco and keeping this one safe in its box.

Buying Advice

At $15, this pen is a bargain, and it is hard to feel anything but positive about the pricing strategy. It would have been easy to charge $40 or $50 simply on the strength of the name, but the affordable price makes it accessible to first-time pen users, which is exactly the kind of gesture worth supporting. If you find one, note that stock now mostly exists on the second-hand market, so sealed examples can carry a premium over the original price.

If you are buying for a Taylor Swift fan, do not hesitate. And if you are buying for yourself as a first fountain pen, welcome to the hobby: this is a friendly, low-risk way to find out whether writing with ink is for you.

Conclusion

The Tortured Poets Department fountain pen succeeds because it does the basics well and wraps them in packaging and branding that fans will genuinely treasure. It is light, smooth, quick to ink, and costs only $15. It is not a high-end writing instrument, but it is a sincere, well-priced piece of merchandise that happens to be a very usable pen, and that is a rare combination.