Arts in Society

Boston Review’s Arts in Society section publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and criticism. It focuses on how the arts loosen the hold of convention, bear witness to injustice, provoke new ways of seeing the world, and speak to the most pressing political and civic concerns of our time.

Browse by Genre

Criticism, Poem, Memoir, Short Story

Browse Criticism by Topic

Fiction, Film and TV, Literature, Music, Poetry, Visual Art

Three poems by Christopher Kempf

  • Christopher Kempf

Suite for Trayvon

(and for the ones we raise)

  • Opal Moore

Two poems

  • Naomi Extra

Harambe for President (2016 Write-In Ballot)

  • Destiny O. Birdsong

Paradise Is Burning

Lost in the stillness of her stare, a dangerous watery horizon appears, and then she removes her mask.

  • Rosa Angelica Martínez

Two poems by Precious Arinze

  • Precious Arinze

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mountainsong

  • RBrown

Apart

“I see it all. What you did, Papa. I’m not angry at you. Don’t worry.” A Moroccan woman living in exile in Paris remembers her father’s dying days. Translated from French by Emma Ramadan.

  • Abdellah Taïa

from ‘mass extinction’

  • Sarah Vap

The Novel and the Secret Police

In Vineland, his underappreciated 1990 novel, Thomas Pynchon anticipated a United States in which security would become the greatest good.

  • Peter Coviello

Two poems

  • Ru (Nina) Puro

Fashioning a Way Out of Black Pain

Race in the fashion industry.

  • Alexis L. Boylan

Children Versus Generals

  • Jane Miller

Alheri

“I want to open the door again. I want to bring him back. And I want him to last longer this time.” A grieving widow makes a man of mud.

  • Hussani Abdulrahim

Two poems

  • Bryce Emley

Theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics

  • Jim Whiteside

Two poems

  • Jake Orbison

Poem for the Guy Down the Street

  • Valencia Robin

Two poems

  • Caio Kaufman

When the State Fears a Poet

Celebrated Indian poet and activist Varavara Rao remains in prison on trumped-up conspiracy charges.

  • Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla

How to Date a Hindu Fundamentalist

“I was perhaps judging him. His poor choice. The way he forsook the greater good for the pleasures of the bed, or something like that. I was sleepy. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. Probably I was surprised by my bad luck.”

  • Aruni Kashyap

Imagining American Utopia

On Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy Three Californias, rereleased this year in a single volume.

  • Dayton Martindale

Public indecency or this is why I’m insecure

  • Azia Armstead

A New Age of Protest Music

Through online fan communities and digital platforms like TikTok, popular music is finding powerful new ways to shape everyday activism, protest, and resistance.

  • Byrd McDaniel
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