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

No Dream

  • James Longenbach

Love Poem

  • Danielle Pieratti

saints & or: notes in the form of sonnets (millay effects)

  • Michael Farrell

Poet’s Sampler: Stacy Szymaszek

  • Stacy Szymaszek
  • Lisa Jarnot

Strange Relations

Jesse Ball’s March Book, Spencer Reece’s The Clerk’s Tale, and Srikanth Reddy’s Facts for Visitors

  • DeSales Harrison

An Unillusioned Life

The Collected Poems of Donald Justice.

  • Stephanie Burt

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The Ethics of Language

  • Alan Gilbert

For God and Country

Two Henry Vs.

  • Alan A. Stone

My Good Man

A short story. 

  • Eric Gansworth

New Jews from the Old Country

A new wave of immigrant fiction.

  • Val Vinokur

Longing for God

Writing in Mississippi.

  • Darcey Steinke

Microreview: Oni Buchanan, What Animal

  • Aimee Kelley

Microreview: Bin Ramke, Matter

  • Fred Muratori

Review: Otherhood

By Reginald Shepherd.

  • Robert Strong

Microreview: Cole Swensen, Goest

  • Michael Robbins

Who Owns Bruno Schulz?

Poland stumbles over its Jewish past.

  • Benjamin Paloff

Song Disowned

  • Bruce Smith

Expecting

A short story. 

  • Emily Fridlund

The Uses Of Fantasy

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

  • Jennifer Howard

American Fighter

A short story. 

  • Donald Pfarrer

See No Evil

On Hero, directed by Zhang Yimou.

  • Alan A. Stone

Master of the Same New Things

On Richard Howard.

  • James Longenbach

The Politics of Reading

On Marjorie Welish.

  • Zack Finch

Facilitas

  • Garth Greenwell
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