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Arts in Society brings our previously siloed poetry and fiction—along with cultural criticism and belles lettres—into a common project. It focuses on how the arts—including the visual arts, theater, dance, and film—can speak directly to the most pressing political and civic concerns, including racism, inequality, poverty, demagoguery, sex- and gender-based violence, a disempowered electorate, and a collapsing natural world.
Poetry
Remembering poets Lynda Hull and Michael S. Harper, with original portraits
Poetry
As my relatives melted, I stood
on one leg, raised my arms, eyes shut, & thought:
tree tree tree as death passed me—untouched.
Critics tend to discount Rich’s later poems, fundamentally misunderstanding how they engage her radical vision of community.
A series of creative reflections on why Yusef Komunyakaa remains one of our greatest living writers and what it means to be a Black Jazz Poet.
Fiction
“I was my father’s son. My father was Nai Nai’s least favorite.” A Taiwanese American man, driven from home by a secret, reevaluates his childhood memories of his grandmother.
Poetry
a slave ship hauls / bodies as cargo and / both the surface and ocean floor / rifts. even the clouds break / open in sobs.
Poetry
loving mother, come watch me be patient, / watch how i describe things that never leave my mouth
Fiction
“Closing her eyes, she pictured Abbie in the funeral home.” Grieving the death of her best friend, a young woman travels to Singapore to stay with an aunt she barely knows.
Poetry
Selected by Sonia Sanchez as a finalist for the 2021 Boston Review Annual Poetry Contest
Its illegitimacy goes far beyond the war on drugs.
Fiction
“Never do unto me what your uncle has done to us.” A family member’s disappearance leads to personal revelations.
Fiction
“My mother has not slept for seven days.” A Taiwanese woman’s brother avoids calling their mother, setting off an insomniac unraveling.
Poetry
Selected by Sonia Sanchez as a finalist for the 2021 Boston Review Annual Poetry Contest
Fiction
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Chair of African American and African Diaspora Studies; Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies, and the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University.
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A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975. Registered 501(c)(3) organization. Learn more about our mission
