Carolyn Forché Criticism
Carolyn Forché is a distinguished American poet, journalist, editor, and translator known for her deeply political and evocative poetry. Her work is characterized by a seamless merging of the personal with the political, vividly portraying the harsh realities of global conflicts and human rights issues. Forché's ability to balance language and artistic expression in her poetry is explored in Michael Greer's analysis, which advocates for a broader understanding of the political dimensions in her work.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Forché's early interest in writing led her to produce an impressive collection of personal narratives and journals. Her debut poetry collection, Gathering the Tribes (1976), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award and explored themes of community and memory. Terence Diggory notes its connection to the political focus of her later works.
Forché's experiences in El Salvador during the late 1970s profoundly influenced her second collection, The Country Between Us (1982). This volume, informed by her firsthand experiences of the Salvadoran Civil War, is recognized for its compelling political narrative and transformative artistry, as described by Paul Gray. Despite critiques like Katha Pollitt's suggestion that her poetic language sometimes dilutes her themes, Forché's portrayal of human rights issues retains its significance, as observed by Joyce Carol Oates.
Forché's "poetry of terrible witness," as Sharon Doubiago describes, confronts the unseen political dimensions inherent in every poem, a notion supported by Larry Levis. Her work, including The Angel of History (1994), continues to explore themes of war, memory, and survival, cementing her legacy in political and literary discourse. This collection, awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry, delves into the twentieth century's atrocities, using fragmented narratives that incorporate voices from historical crises. Susan Salter Reynolds notes that Forché's work transcends mere witness, integrating others' histories into her legacy, thus offering a voice to those who have endured unimaginable suffering.
Forché's literary journey is marked by her profound ability to evoke connections with nature and community through linguistic diversity, as highlighted by Wendy Knox. Stanley Kunitz acknowledges her skill in juxtaposing the beautiful with the ugly, employing vivid imagery that reflects her Slavic heritage and understanding of Native American cultures. Her commitment to activism is evident not only in her poetry but also in her involvement with organizations like Amnesty International and PEN, underscoring her enduring impact on both literature and social justice.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Forché, Carolyn (Vol. 25)
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Stanley Kunitz
(summary)
In the following essay, Stanley Kunitz argues that Carolyn Forché's poetry, characterized by its narrative style and vivid imagery, explores themes of kinship and identity while blending personal and cultural history, examining primal human connections, and demonstrating mastery over language with a focus on wholeness and clarity.
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Relatedness and Ritual
(summary)
In the following essay, Wendy Knox examines the narrative style and thematic elements in Carolyn Forché's Gathering the Tribes, highlighting Forché's use of vivid language, the influence of her Slavic heritage, and her ability to evoke profound connections with nature and community through descriptive storytelling and linguistic diversity.
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On Carolyn Forché
(summary)
In the following essay, Kenneth Rexroth argues that Carolyn Forché is an exceptional poet whose work, deeply influenced by her life experiences and cultural heritage, transcends the typical poetic formulae and resonates with a ceremonial and mystical quality, making it particularly significant for feminist and liberation movements.
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Books: 'Gathering the Tribes'
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In the following essay, Stanley Plumly critiques Carolyn Forché’s Gathering the Tribes, arguing that her poetry excels in shorter forms due to a more personal voice and that while her thematic exploration of heritage and identity is ambitious, it sometimes suffers from a lack of narrative focus in longer pieces.
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Books: 'Gathering the Tribes'
(summary)
In the following essay, Claire Hahn argues that Carolyn Forché's poetry, characterized by its pellucid honesty and complex interplay of beauty and threat, offers a profound exploration of her cultural heritage and personal experiences, achieving a disciplined art that is both intense and authoritative.
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Five Voices and Harmonies
(summary)
In the following essay, Paul Gray examines Carolyn Forché's poetry in The Country Between Us, highlighting her evocative portrayal of the brutal realities in El Salvador and her unromanticized view of resistance, emphasizing her powerful and unforgettable voice in addressing themes of human rights and global strife.
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Two Poets
(summary)
In the following essay, Joyce Carol Oates argues that Carolyn Forché’s poetry in "The Country Between Us" effectively merges the political and personal, portraying the bleak realities of El Salvador with unflinching candor, and highlights her evolution from her earlier work, demonstrating considerable cumulative power and authentic vision.
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Poems on Public Subjects
(summary)
In the following essay, Katha Pollitt critiques Carolyn Forché's use of poetic language in The Country Between Us, asserting that while Forché courageously addresses political atrocities, her "poetic" language often undermines the urgency and gravity of her themes, suggesting a need for language that matches the intensity of her subjects.
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'The Country Between Us'
(summary)
In the following essay, Rochelle Ratner explores Carolyn Forché's ability to merge the personal with the political in her poetry, highlighting how her work transcends mere rhetoric to achieve transformation through subtle and poignant imagery, while maintaining an astute sense of observation and refined craftsmanship.
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Stanley Kunitz
(summary)
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Forché, Carolyn (Vol. 86)
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The Angel of History
(summary)
Here, the critic offers a favorable review of The Angel of History. Though Forché's previous books have been groundbreaking works of political and moral depth, this new volume may be the most remarkable. Ambitious and authentic, The Angel of History is an overarching book-length poem, composed in numbered sections, that invokes the horror of contemporary times in a mode reminiscent of Eliot's The Waste Land. Forché considers the Holocaust, Hiroshima and genocide in Latin America—the dismal past that predicates the chaotic present. The poetry is powerful, but it is not always easily understandable; one must follow the Angel through serpentine lines, a disjointed and oblique nightmare whispered by an indeterminate narrator. Forché has not only created poetry of consummate beauty, but has borne witness to the wounds of our collective history.
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Inspired by War
(summary)
In the following review, Walker favorably assesses The Angel of History, briefly comparing it to The Country between Us and noting Forché's focus on World War II, survival, and remembrance.
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The Workings of Chance and Memory
(summary)
In the following favorable review, Russell examines the themes and structure of The Angel of History. With her latest collection, The Angel of History, Carolyn Forché proves once again that socially conscious poetry is not a contradiction in terms. When her first collection, Gathering the Tribes, won the coveted Yale Younger Poets prize in 1976, she was praised by Stanley Kunitz for the quality of her imagination, "at once passionate and tribal." Kunitz seems to be referring to Forché's empathic gift to see her way into other lives. Although these early poems document a connection to her own Slovak ancestry, they demonstrate as well a concern that moves beyond the boundaries of a particular family or cultural heritage toward a more global frame of reference. This global view is most clearly evident in The Angel of History, which takes as its subject nothing less than the devastations of war on every front in the latter part of the twentieth century.
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Postlyrically yours
(summary)
In the excerpt below, Bedient offers a favorable assessment of The Angel of History. Carolyn Forché's The Angel of History is instantly recognizable as a great book, the most humanitarian and aesthetically 'inevitable' response to a half-century of atrocities that has yet been written in English. Each rereading becomes more hushed, more understanding, more painful, more rapt. A sort of bedrock of acquaintance with human misery, as of memory's capacity to witness it, emerges in lines that are each peculiarly forlorn: 'The cry is cut from its stalk.'
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Muses of History
(summary)
In the excerpt below, Bogen extols Forché's ability to document historical atrocities, individual experience, and political vision in The Angel of History, noting that the book is a breakthrough from Forché's earlier works.
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The Personal as Political
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In the following essay, announcing that Forché is the recipient of the 1994 Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry, she praises the fragmented structure and style of The Angel of History as well as its focus on the 'social' realm.
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The Angel of History
(summary)
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Forché, Carolyn (Vol. 83)
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Larry Levis (essay date July 1981)
(summary)
In the excerpt below, originally given as a speech in July 1981 at the Aspen Writers' Conference in Aspen, Colorado, he discusses the problems associated with attempting to convey the atrocities of war through literature and Forché's poetic treatment of the subject of violence.
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Carolyn Forché (essay date July-August 1981)
(summary)
The following is a revised version of a speech Forché originally gave in March 1981 at one of the first meetings of PEN West, the International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists. Here, she discusses the atrocities she saw in El Salvador, the role of the United States in the region, the relationship between poetry and politics, and her literary aims.
- Carolyn Forché with Jonathan Cott (interview date 14 April 1983)
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The Country Between Us
(summary)
In the following excerpt, he provides a thematic analysis of The Country between Us, discussing its relationship to Gathering the Tribes and its focus on political concerns.
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The Political Constitution of Carolyn Forché's Poetry
(summary)
In the essay below, Greer examines Forché's poetry as a phenomenon that is, in its very constitution and production, social, historical, and political. He critiques the notion of 'political poetry' and argues that it marginalizes poems without exploring the social and political constitution of all literary discourse. Greer discusses Forché's 'El Salvador: An Aide-Memoire' as a text that challenges the classification of her work as merely political, suggesting a broader understanding of politics in poetry.
- Carolyn Forché with Jill Taft-Kaufman (interview date January 1990)
- The Country Between Us….
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Larry Levis (essay date July 1981)
(summary)
- Further Reading