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
The Invisible Hand of Greg Tate
Robin D. G. Kelley and Bongani Madondo honor the writer’s life, work, and legacy.
Classical Music and the Color Line
The field is reckoning with a long legacy of racial exclusion, despite its universalist claims.
Announcing the 2021 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest Winner and Finalists
Congratulations to Yiru Zhang!
Skylarking
“Every time she noticed he was dressed for sport, she’d head for the door.” In this short story, a young Jamaican man weighs his responsibility to his family against his love of biking.
Two Poems
Two white men carrying briefcases walk in on a congressional meeting held by African leaders dressed in Western attire. Clapping at the president who resembles Léopold Senghor. He uses words like “revolutionary” and “independence” and they garner an applause.
Our Theresa
“The something we had been waiting for had happened.” In this short story, the traces of a missing Nigerian woman haunt her neighbors, who struggle with how intensely they had disliked and envied her.
The Captive Photograph
Images seized from enslaved people are not private property to be owned, but ancestors to be cared for.
Three poems
Our bodies, temples—shouldn’t that mean anyone can worship? Shouldn’t that mean it’s okay to dip my hips into a communion bowl?
Two poems by José B. González
The sewing machines have been pushed aside to a far-off world, but I can still hear their thumping
Two Poems
As my relatives melted, I stood
on one leg, raised my arms, eyes shut, & thought:
tree tree tree as death passed me—untouched.
At the Gates, Mikhail Makes Me a Feast of Rain and Dirt
Hazem Fahmy was a finalist for the 2019 Boston Review Annual Poetry Contest and this poem appeared in our arts anthology Allies.
Centuries From Now I’ll Be the Archaeologist Who Digs Up Ferdinand Marcos’s Bones
sometimes i want to give God all the glory, but then i remember that he’s a white man too
mom calls me often
to ask if i’ve been doing
my nightly devotionals
Dog Tiger Horse
“I could have been a clever girl. When the first of the Japanese bombs fell on Penang, my father stopped us from going to school. And when the war was over, there was no question of going back. So I married your father.” Three generations of a family struggle to maintain their way of life in a country changed irrevocably by war.
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