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 Night of the Scorpions

A short story. 

  • Elisha Porat

Giant Steps

A review of two books on Coltrane.

  • Scott Saul

Microreviews

April/May 1999

Review: Hay

By Paul Muldoon.

  • Stephanie Burt

Review: Thieves of Paradise

By Yusef Komunyakaa.

  • Kevin Young

Review: Green Sees Things in Waves

By August Kleinzahler.

  • Will Broaddus

Sign up for our newsletter

Review: Poetry On and Off the Page

By Marjorie Perloff.

  • Michael Davidson

Microreviews

April/May 1999

Poet’s Sampler: Tan Lin

Introduced by Charles Bernstein

  • Tan Lin

Censorship

  • Lee Upton

[because as lives are aching I am lucky: a poisonal cup]

  • D. A. Powell

No. 2 Pencil Quaquaversal Shout

  • Calvin Bedient

Ghazal

  • Agha Shahid Ali

Getting Out (15)

  • Robert Lietz

Air for Mercury

  • Brenda Hillman

SHAZAM!

  • Allen Grossman

Escape from Auschwitz

Life Is Beautiful, directed by Roberto Benigni.

  • Alan A. Stone

Love for a Fat Man

Runner-up in the Sixth Annual Short Story Contest

  • Rhoda B. Stamell

Review: Shakespeare

By Harold Bloom.

  • Robert Atwan

Review: Penthesilea

By Heinrich von Kleist.

  • Steve Dowden

Review: Oulipo Compendium

Edited by Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie.

  • James Sallis

Microreviews

February/March 1999

Review: Gander and Revell

These two exceptional new books by two of our finest contemporary poets both articulate loss and renewal.

  • Tod Marshall

Review: The Triumph of Love

By Geoffrey Hill.

  • Andrew Zawacki
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