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

Poem for Rihanna After Chris Brown’s Arrest

  • Greg Weiss

True Figures

  • David Blair

Clairvoyance (Sunlight)

  • Melissa Kwasny

A. in May

  • Kathleen Ossip

369

  • Kate Greenstreet

Poet’s Sampler: David J. Daniels

Selected with an introduction by Jennifer Grotz

  • David J. Daniels
  • Jennifer Grotz

Sign up for our newsletter

Core Samples from the World

Forrest Gander’s latest book injects ethical consequence into his daring sense of the permeability of structure and the instability of form.

  • Richard Deming

Fall Higher

After more than a dozen books, Dean Young has become the spokesperson for a certain kind of poetic abandon.

  • Andrew Allport

Helsinki

Poems with pleasing uncertainty.

  • Elizabeth Gramm

Either Way I’m Celebrating

Between poetry and stand-up comedy.

  • Kathleen Rooney

Picture World

Niels Frank's latest collection is more like an inspired monologue than poems. 

  • Nate Pritts

The End of Nothing

Segregation Is Still a Problem in the United States

  • Ryan D. Enos

Odd One Out

An Interview with Joan Houlihan

  • Joan Houlihan
  • Sawnie Morris

from Ay

  • Joan Houlihan

The Networked Era: An Interview with Michael Nielsen

Why discussion boards and online marketplaces can make it easier for scientists to pool their data and find far-flung collaborators.

  • Michael Nielsen
  • Lindsey Gilbert

Summer of ’76

The Harper brothers acted as if they didn’t see Lola or her car, right in front of them, plain as day.

  • Phyllis Alexander

An Acquired Taste

Swinton gives her all to the martyred victim in We Need to Talk about Kevin.

  • Alan A. Stone

Poetry Fights Back

Modern Pashtun poetry is a poetry of resistance.

  • Shaheen Buneri

Not So Nasty, Brutish, and Short

Steven Pinker’s Good News

  • Claude S. Fischer

Poet’s Sampler: Iris Cushing

Selected and with an introduction by Katy Lederer

  • Iris Cushing
  • Katy Lederer

The Suffering World

Poets Grieve

  • Katie Peterson

All Together Now

How Description Fosters Connection

  • Siobhan Phillips

The Bicameral Eyeball

  • John Ashbery

The Sound of It, Spring

And the birds, oh the birds are everywhere these days.

  • Elizabeth Gramm
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