Carolyn Forché: Bearing witness through the power of poetry

An interview with Carolyn Forché, who upset the polite norms of the poetic establishment in 1981 with her breakthrough poetry collection, The Country Between Us. Centered on a cycle of poems inspired by Forché’s months reporting in war-torn El Salvador, the book was named the 1981 Lamont Poetry Selection and became a bestseller among poetry collections. Almost 40 years later, Forché was a National Book Award finalist for her first full-length book of prose, a memoir of her time in El Salvador titled What You Have Heard Is True. Forché has also published three other books of poetry -- including The Angel of History, which the Los Angeles Times named the best poetry book of 1994, and In the Lateness of the World, which was published earlier this year to high acclaim. She teaches at Georgetown University, where she directs the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. #poetry #poems #poetrylovers #poetinterviews #politicalpoetry #poetryfans #elsalvador #oscarromero #saintoscarromero #revolutionaryuprisings #dictatorships #carolynforche #margaretatwood #thehandmaidstale #mountsainthelens #indigenouswriters #littlewomen #femalepoets