Carolyn Forche

After witnessing the atrocities of the brewing civil war in El Salvador in her early 20s, American poet Carolyn Forché (1950-) dedicated her writing career to activism. Forché came face to face with human pain and the extremes of political power during her two -ear stay in the country. She recorded these experiences in several poems, poetry collections, and books. Today, Forché is best known for the term "poetry of witness" and the work she has done to highlight the works of poets who write from places of oppression, imprisonment, and pain.

Carolyn Forché Biography

Carolyn Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1950. She went to Michigan State University for her Bachelor of Arts and graduated in 1972. She then went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree at Bowling Green State University in 1975. Forché published her first poetry collection, Gathering the Tribes, the following year.

In 1977, Forché began traveling to foreign countries, an experience that defined her career and writing style. She went first to Spain, where she translated the works of various poets. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, which enabled her to travel to El Salvador and find her calling as a human rights advocate. As she witnessed the unfolding civil war, she also witnessed how children, especially girls, were treated cruelly and did not have adequate access to medical treatment.

Fig. 1 - Human rights became the focal point of Forché's writing after her time working as an activist and journalist in El Salvador.

Forché's second collection, The Country between Us (1981), centers around her time in El Salvador and calls attention to the human rights issues in the country. Forché has been called a political poet, but she prefers the term politically engaged poet. She coined the term "poetry of witness" in her 1993 anthology Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness. This anthology featured poets whose work was influenced by their own conditions, all of which were extreme such as exile, imprisonment, and war.

Altogether, Forché has written five collections of poetry, the most recent being In the Lateness of the World (2020). She has also written several memoirs. Forché has won several awards for her works; and has held three fellowships. She currently works as University Professor at Georgetown University.

Carolyn Forché Facts

Forché is best known for coining the term "poetry of witness" in Against Forgetting (1993). She says that poetry of witness is "an event and the trace of an event" (33). Essentially, the poet responds to traumatic events, such as war, slavery, imprisonment, and oppression through the written word. Human pain is the center of these poems' ethical and political discussion. Poetry of witness helps readers to become more understanding and empathetic of the suffering of others.

Much of Forché's understanding of human rights comes from her faith. She was raised Roman Catholic, and many of her works have religious themes. In an effort to define faith for herself, Forché studied Protestant theology. After her seeing the suffering in El Salvador, she turned back to the Catholic church.

Fig. 2 - Forché's human rights activism is deeply tied to her faith

Forché is the oldest of seven children in a Slovak and Irish family. It was her mother who encouraged her to experiment with poetry. She began writing in iambic pentameter when she was nine.

Forché was deeply influenced by the turbulent world of the mid to late 20th century. The controversial Vietnam War was ongoing when she completed her undergraduate degree in international relations. She read about the trials of the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, who was exiled from his home country in 1972 by angry Soviet officials. Perhaps the most impactful event on her style as a poet was her time in El Salvador, as described above.

Carolyn Forché Books

Forché has written several memoirs, poetry collections, and edited anthologies of other writers' works. Below are three of her most popular books.

Gathering the Tribes

Forché's first book of poetry, Gathering the Tribes (1976), was published by Yale University Press after winning the 1975 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Forché was 24 when the book was published, and she used many of her own experiences as source material. Gathering the Tribes examines Forché's Slovak ancestry and childhood while examining themes of family, sexuality, and race.

The Country Between Us

The Country Between Us (1981) is Forché's second collection of poetry. It was named the 1981 Lamont Poetry Selection and quickly became a bestseller. The Country Between Us reflects on Forché's time in El Salvador and the horrible human rights abuses that she witnessed there. Forché originally wanted to tell the story through journalistic articles, but she found that poetry was the only way to truly express the full extent of the emerging civil war. This collection is both intimate and moving, as it reflects on injustice and trauma.

Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness

It is in Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (1993) that Forché coined the term "poetry of witness." In this anthology, Forché collected poetry from 140 different poets. The poets encompass a diverse range of races, faiths, and geographic locations. The one thing they all have in common is facing extreme conditions in the 20th century. According to Forché in the anthology's introduction, the poets she highlighted each "endured conditions of historical and social extremity during the twentieth century—through exile, state censorship, political persecution, house arrest, torture, imprisonment, military occupation, warfare, and assassination."¹

Carolyn Forché Poems

Two of Forché's most memorable poems are "The Colonel" and "Exile."

"The Colonel"

Forché wrote "The Colonel" (1981) during her time in El Salvador. It was published in The Country Between Us (1993). The poem reads very much like a diary entry, as the speaker records what she witnesses at the colonel's dinner party. However, it is unclear whether these events are real or fabricated. The speaker sits beside the colonel at his dinner party. His house is similar to many American houses, and dinner seems to be going well. About halfway through, however, the poem shifts. The colonel states that it has become difficult to govern his people. When his parrot says hello, the colonel yells at the bird to shut up, gets up from the table, and returns with a bag of human ears. He spills the ears on the table with some falling to the floor. Then he curses at the speaker and her "people" and mocks her poetry.

Fig. 3 - The peaceful illusion of the dinner party is destroyed as the colonel spills human ears over the table.

"Exile"

Carolyn Forché Quotes

Below are some of Forché's most famous and impactful quotes. They mostly speak to her human rights activism and the poetry of witness.

This quote was included in Forché's 2004 poem "Blue Hours." It is included in the collection by the same name. The poem was dedicated to Sean Christophe, Forché's son. It speaks to the loss that comes with age but also with trauma. This quote specifically focuses on the loss of trauma. Although people can literally live through slavery, exile, imprisonment, and war, there are pieces of them that will not survive. Their humanity, happiness, and human soul might not survive the pain.

This quote is from the intro to Against Forgetting. It speaks to the challenges of writing politically-engaging poetry. Forché argues that in the unstable, deeply flawed modern world, poets need to speak out against politics that are used as a tool of oppression. In order to write meaningfully about the pain caused by certain politics, poets need to write from their personal experiences. But at the same time, Forché realizes how complicated it is when personal poetry is attacked for not being objective. Meanwhile, personal poetry can also overlook the full complexity of political problems and oversimplify complex issues. In order to account for all of these nuances, Forché attempts to bridge this gap between the poetic and the political through poetry of witness.