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

The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot

Winner of the Second Annual Poetry Contest

  • Stephanie Strickland

A New Hope

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

  • Alan A. Stone

Primo Levi’s Last Moments

On that tragic Saturday, only his body was smashed.

  • Diego Gambetta

For Whom the Bells Toll

In post-literary America, ringing praise for Ernest Hemingway

  • Neil Shister

Duet

A short story. 

  • Pamela Erens

A Groove of History

On Ralph Ellison’s Juneteenth.

  • Scott Saul

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Nonfiction Microreviews

Summer 1999

Irish Poetics

Review: McGuckian and Carson.

  • Thomas O’Grady

Review: Jackstraws

By Charles Simic. 

  • Brian Henry

Review: The End of the Alphabet

By Claudia Rankine.

  • Calvin Bedient

Microreviews: Summer 1999

Seven new poetry publications. 

Poet’s Sampler: Jordan Davis

Introduced by David Shapiro

  • Jordan Davis

Laurie’s House

  • Jamey Dunham

The Mutiny on the Bounty

  • Karri Harrison

Deconstructing Stefan, or Destructing Stefan

  • Emma Straub

At first you don’t succeed

  • Steven Monte

Happy Jack’s on Our Saturday Morning

  • Elizabeth Macklin

The Definite Article

  • Elizabeth Macklin

Rainbows

  • Jesper Svenbro

Saint-Merri

  • Jesper Svenbro

Lives of Women

The Autumn Tale, directed by Eric Rohmer.

  • Alan A. Stone

Silence Is Death

An interview with the Rev. Eugene Rivers III.

  • Eugene F. Rivers III
  • Eva T. Thorne

Uncle Franz’s Legacy

A personal history of two Germanies.

  • Vivian Rothstein

Club Chaos

Understanding the South Beach Effect

  • Neil Shister
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