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

Xochimilco

A short story.

  • Esmé-Michelle Watkins

The Fourfold

  • Tadeusz Dąbrowski
  • Antonia Lloyd-Jones

What Does That Server Really Serve?

How programs like Google Docs rob users of their freedom.

  • Richard M. Stallman

Review: Petals of Zero, Petals of One

By Andrew Zawacki.

  • Zach Savich

This Time in Wartime

  • CJ Evans

Letter to a City Under Siege

  • Carolyn Forché

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Sins of the Father

Alan Stone reviews Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon.

  • Alan A. Stone

Body of Work

Experiments in life and poetic form.

  • Tess Taylor

Know-How

H.L. Hix: Philosopher-Poet

  • Troy Jollimore

Restless

On the poetry of Carl Phillips.

  • Katie Peterson

Review: The All-Purpose Magical Tent

By Lytton Smith.

  • Tara Neelakantappa Safronoff

Review: Star in the Eye

By James Shea.

  • Nick Admussen

Review: Sophie Robinson’s a

A poetry collection that feels both peculiarly allusive and particular.

  • Cristiana Baik

Review: Stupid Hope

By Jason Shinder.

  • Robert Schnall

Poet’s Sampler: Rasheeda Plenty

  • Rasheeda Plenty
  • A. Van Jordan

Hills, South Truro, 1930

  • Ernest Farrés
  • Lawrence Venuti

After Ecstasy

  • Stephen Dunn

Scenes from the Arguments

  • Stephen Dunn

Scenes of Negotiation

  • Adrienne Rich

from Thread

  • Michael Palmer

Banking

  • Cara Benson

Dawning

  • Jorie Graham

Life During Wartime

  • Major Jackson

Myth

  • Major Jackson
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