The struggles of our nation to control the pandemic have been dim. Reading any fiction looks like a mirror into distant existence, for all the data is too stultifying and real. Poetry seems like a quick respite, as it demands deep but contained attention, and reminds the mind to strive towards idealism.
I discovered the poetry of Carolyn Forché during the protests. I have been moved by the lyricism, the quiet desperation, and the bleak moments of explosive joy in the lives and loves captured in her poetry. Hilton Als explores the impact of Forche’s poetry in the New Yorker (likely paywall).
Here I am, bearing witness to the world that I don’t seem to understand or able to transform. I read and I ponder. I wonder if I am at least transforming myself.
I have been reading Forche’s “The Country Between Us” — a thin book of collection of her poems. Like many great works of importance, her poetry collection faced difficulties in getting published as many publishing houses continued to reject the book until Margaret Atwood stepped in to make a case for Forche. The first handful of poems were written during Forche’s days in El Salvador. They arrest the beauty of the calamitous struggle. The Colonel stands out. I reproduce the poem here, as it is a striking exemplar of journalism through poetry.
THE COLONEL WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them- selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground. May 1978
FOR THE STRANGER “... Each time the train slows, a man with our faces in the gold buttons of his coat passes through the cars muttering the name of a city. Each time we lose people. Each time I find you again between the cars, holding out a scrap of bread for me, something hot to drink, until there are no more cities and you pull me toward you, sliding your hands into my coat, telling me your name over and over, hurrying your mouth into mine. We have, each of us, nothing. We will give it to each other.”