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

Mercy

  • Laura Kasischke

Geosmin

  • Lucas Farrell

The Spring Campaigns

  • Julio Martínez Mesanza
  • Don Bogen

Poet’s Sampler: Farid Matuk

  • Farid Matuk
  • Noah Eli Gordon

Life After Rugby

  • Eileen G’Sell

Dear Final Journey,

  • Lynn Emanuel

Sign up for our newsletter

What Can Be Known

  • Jocelyn Casey-Whiteman

Repercussions of the Current Import/Export Ratio

Winner of the 2009 Discovery Contest.

  • Jynne Dilling Martin

2009 Discovery Poetry Contest Winners

Jynne Dilling Martin, Jeffrey Schultz, Bridget Lowe, Annabelle Yeeseul Yoo.

  • Boston Review

J. Steals from the Rich and Uses the Money to Get Drunk Again

Winner of the 2009 Discovery Contest.

  • Jeffrey Schultz

The Wild Boy of Aveyron Stands Up During a Dinner Arranged by the Doctor

Winner of the 2009 Discovery Poetry Contest.

  • Bridget Lowe

Bright Burial

Winner of the 2009 Discovery Poetry Contest.

  • Annabelle Yeeseul Yoo

State of the Nation: Anti-Semitism and the Economic Crisis

When it comes to the financial crisis, Democrats are especially prone to blaming Jews

  • Neil Malhotra
  • Yotam Margalit

God’s Work

What can faith-based activism do for labor?

  • Nancy MacLean

House of Men

A short story.

  • Shivani Manghnani

Purple Gaze

In the City of Sylvia

  • Alan A. Stone

The New Thing

The object lessons of recent American poetry.

  • Stephanie Burt

The Fetch

Ciaran Carson's For All We Know.

  • Piotr Florczyk

[It’s not true that the world is an unending return]

Translated from the Polish by Jennifer Carter-Zielińska

  • Tadeusz Dąbrowski

After Wang Ximeng’s Blue and Green Horizontal Landscape Scroll, A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains

Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Sze

  • Xi Chuan
  • Arthur Sze

Mayflower Compact

  • Mark Walston

Cotton Mather Preaches on Satan

  • Mark Walston

Homecoming Dance

  • Jess Sauer

Evaporation 2

  • Forrest Gander
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