The Country Between Us

Carolyn Forché uses the power of witness in her second book of poetry, The Country Between Us, to describe what she saw in El Salvador in the 70s when the country was erupting into civil war. She worked with Archbishop Oscar Romero’s church group, documenting heinous human rights abuses. 

The fighting became too dangerous by 1980, so Archbishop Romero asked Forché to return to her home and tell America what was happening in his country. One week later, he was assassinated. Forché continued to give talks about U.S.-backed oppression happening in Central America. However, she faced many obstacles in getting the word out because publishers and critics found the subject matter in this collection uncomfortable, as many of the poems discuss murder, torture, and injustice. When the war in El Salvador finally made its way into public awareness in 1981, her book finally won her the recognition it deserved. 

Carolyn Forché is an American poet, editor, translator, and activist. Her second book of poetry, The Country Between Us, won the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award and was the Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets. 

Carolyn Forché will be in Loveland on Friday, April 12th and Saturday, April 13th. The weekend includes a reception, a reading by Carolyn Forché, and a conversation between Forché and Loveland’s Evan Oakley, Aims Community College professor, who worked with Forché on her ground-breaking anthology, Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. These events are presented by the Loveland Poet Laureate Program.