George H. Van Norman / Library of Congress
Real Americans
Why does the Tea Party see only liberals as arrogant? Why do liberals dismiss Tea Partiers as unhinged bumpkins? Populists and progressives have been at odds for a long time.
Left: William Jennings Bryan on the campaign trail in 1896. Bryan’s fiery brand of populism was a precursor to today’s, and was similarly loathed by liberals.
Office
A poem by Allison Titus
Reductive
A poem by Arthur Vogelsang
Democracy After Citizens United
Most Americans believe that Congress is for sale, too corrupt to be trusted. The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United will intensify that mistrust.
The Ancient Dream
Vivian Gornick
The Tolstoys found the idea of marriage irresistible. It nearly destroyed them.
Library of Congress / Count Tolstoy, wife, son, and dog.
Want to work at BR? We’re hiring a Marketing and Promotions Manager.
Lawrence Lessig and the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt discuss the Fair Elections Now Act and related issues from this month’s BR forum.
essays
Curtain Call
Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere
Alan A. Stone
Clear and Hold
Roberta Grandes Gratz’s The Battle for Gotham
Casey Walker
State of the Nation
Early and often: How good are state
voter-registration files?
Stephen Ansolabehere and Eitan Hersh
Mind the Gap
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level
Claude S. Fischer
The War for Drugs
How Juárez became the world’s
deadliest city
Sarah Hill
Sharing Liberally
Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus
Evgeny Morozov
Man of Principle
The passions of Arthur Koestler
Roger Boylan
Ending the Endless War
Will Colombia’s democracy survive the violence?
Luis Fernando Medina
Dreaming of a Free Iran
Akbar Ganji accepts the Friedman Prize
Akbar Ganji, translated by
Hamid Dabashi—Web only
A New Start
Nuclear disarmament, and the prospects for Obama’s “Global Zero”
Tara McKelvey
Speak, Memory
Can digital storage remember for you?
Evgeny Morozov
fiction
The Gentleman Thief
Sidebar: “My Two Worlds,” Goli Taraghi’s Bita Prize lecture
Goli Taraghi
translated by Faridoun Farrokh
Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders
Samuel R. Delany
How Do I Explain?
Winner of Boston Review’s 17th annual fiction contest
Adam Sturtevant
Sites of interest: Personal Loans
2002: James Campbell’s When Popular Culture Meets Grand Literary Ambition: The Case of Jonathan Franzen
Forums
Mothers Who Care Too Much
A forum on feminism and mothering with Nancy J. Hirschmann. Responses from Anne L. Alstott, Melody Berger, Mona Harrington, Robin West, Lisa Dodson, and others. Hirschmann responds.
Big Pharma, Bad Medicine
With Marcia Angell and responses from Adriane Fugh-Berman, Howard Brody, David Bollier, and others. Thomas P. Stossel on the value of academic-industry relationships. A letter from Frank Britt and Marissa Seligman.
poetry
Without End
Ann Lauterbach’s Or To Begin Again
Richard Deming
Poet’s Sampler: Arlo Quint
Introduced by Anselm Berrigan
Psyche
Gustaf Sobin
Poetry Hot and Cold
Myung Mi Kim’s Penury and Leland Hickman’s Tiresias
Calvin Bedient
Warhol / Blue Jackie
Peter Balakian
Anniversary
Joseph P. Wood
Everlasting Life and Particular Flight
John Deming
Before History
Harry Clifton’s Secular Eden
Alissa Valles
What If There Is a Person
Steve Healey
In the End There Were Thousands of Cowboys
Mary Austin Speaker
Love Poem
Sophie Cabot Black
Zero Hour
Kristine Ong Muslim
In The Golden Age of Counterfeitting
Christopher Salerno
Slumming
Daniel Tiffany’s Infidel Poetics
Joyelle McSweeney
Good Girls/Bad Girls
Judy Smith McDonough
Called Into Being
Charles Bernstein’s All The Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems
Richard Deming
Crows, Too, Have a Means of Purring and They Have Built a Public Fountain
Anthony Madrid
Poet’s Sampler: Lynn Xu
Introduced by Ben Lerner
False Documents
Nicole Walker
Microreviews
Jennifer Moxley
Catie Rosemurgy
Robert Henryson/Seamus Heaney
Christina Pugh
Brenda Hillman
More Poetry & Poetry Criticism
