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

Searching for Anne’s Grave

(from Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse)

  • David Trinidad

Sonnet

  • Karen Volkman

Sonnet

  • Karen Volkman

The Debtor in the Convex Mirror

Winner of the Sixth Annual Boston Review Poetry Contest

  • Susan Wheeler

*true confessions*

A short story. 

  • Vivian Chin

Buona Sera, Social Clubs?

Three collections of Italian American writing.

  • Alane S. Mason

Sign up for our newsletter

Another Country

Writing The Book of Hard Things.

  • Sue Halpern

Two White Americans

Poetry that looks at the acidic and the absurd in American culture.

  • Paul Killebrew

Say Goodbye to Everything

Blue Hour by Carolyn Forché.

  • John Palattella

Back to Jarrell

Stephen Burt 's Randall Jarrell and His Age. 
 

  • Jacques Khalip

Microreviews: Oct/Nov 2003

Eight new collections of poetry.

Realism’s Redemption

Sweet Sixteen and Raising Victor Vargas.

  • Alan A. Stone

The Flame Tree of Freedom: Poetry and Apartheid

  • Peter Anderson

Cheap Shots

Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine.

  • Alan A. Stone

Time

  • Nikolai Zabolotsky

When I’m speaking, I’m not crying

  • Susan Stewart

When I’m crying, I’m not speaking

  • Susan Stewart

They’re Putting a New Door In

  • Brian Kim Stefans

Poet’s Sampler: Cristina Rivera-Garza

Introduced by Lynn Emanuel

  • Cristina Rivera-Garza

Plus Appetite

  • Frances Richard

from Don’t Let Me Be Lonely

Cornel West makes the point that hope is different from American optimism. After the initial presidential election results come in, I stop watching the news.

  • Claudia Rankine

Gin

  • Joe Millar

Direction

  • Aaron Belz

Microreviews: Summer 2003

Nine new poetry collections.

trending_flat
Get our newsletter

Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox

A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975

Registered 501(c)(3) organization

Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

Donate

Become a Member

Subscribe