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

Teacher Feature: Lessons from the Union Dead

  • DeSales Harrison

Teacher Feature: The Scorpion in the Room

  • Shane McCrae

Teacher Feature: Ma Rainey’s Blues

  • Evie Shockley

Teacher Feature

Poet-teachers on teaching poetry

  • Boston Review

The Futility of Liberal Backlash to Trump

He thrives on his opponents’ outrage.

  • Sam Rosen

“The days that were have now”

—Gilgamesh

  • Emilia Phillips

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Reading the 2015 T. S. Eliot Prize Shortlist

Poetry from Claudia Rankine, Mark Doty, Les Murray, Sarah Howe, and more.

  • Dai George

Blooming, Buzzing Experience

The Wonders subverts the typical female coming-of-age story.

  • Alan A. Stone

Poet’s Sampler: Uyen Hua

  • Uyen Hua
  • Chris Nealon

The Wheel

A missed rendezvous, a red-eye to Hong Kong . . .

  • Samantha Leese

On Styrofoam

  • Zoë Hitzig

don’t you worry ’bout a thing*

  • erica lewis

In Deep and Out Far

On Solitude and Vitality

  • David Baker

Speaking in Tongues

Serving time in Richmond City Jail.

  • Dave Byrne

Two Poems

  • Cole Swensen

Two Poems

Translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry

  • Tomaž Šalamun

The Maker

  • J. Estanislao Lopez

The Online–Sex Predator Panic

Laws Against Online Luring Harm Children

  • Judith Levine

A Brief History of the Human Ear

  • Bruce Bond

2015 Poetry Contest Winner: Safiya Sinclair

  • Cathy Park Hong
  • Safiya Sinclair

A Servant Heart

How has neoliberalism become so closely linked with evangelical Christianity?

  • James G. Chappel

Archive Fever

  • Hai-Dang Phan

Winter Poetry Reads

New poetry from Simone Muench, Cecily Parks, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Rick Barot, and Deborah Landau

  • Boston Review

Courtyard Fire

  • Arthur Sze
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