Carolyn Forche is a reputed poet known especially well for her political pieces. She believed that many art forms including poetry fail to unite the political with the personal, so she set her mind to writing about social injustice. Many of her poems force readers to come to their own conclusions about the moral implications of real historical events. In her first poem collection, Forche establishes herself as reliable witness. She later becomes the figurehead of a poetry movement which she calls "Poetry of Witness."
Forche's work is unique because of her journalistic experience. She travelled to real places to meet real people and witnessed real historical events which is why her words carry a peculiarly heavy weight. Over the years she met with inmates, refugees, dictators, and all sorts of politically engaged people. She was actively writing during 1970s all the way to the 90s. In a generation which had lost faith in political leaders, she offers a humanitarian perspective on violence and injustice. Her opinions change, too, throughout her writing career.
In her later anthologies, Forche demonstrates an evolved approach to her work. Instead of merely describing events, she begins to offer her own judgement. She's crafting her voice in earlier work, building confidence in her ability to correctly analyze her experiences. She forms herself into a vessel by which the rest of the world can bear witness to political (and physical) atrocities. While her earlier work focuses on the gore and brutality which she's seen, some of her later poems embrace ambiguity and metaphor as a tool to force readers to take the words seriously. She's not afraid to point her finger, and she expects her audience to participate in her work because of her deep conviction about its importance. No one could accuse Forche of narcissism, however, as she sacrificially volunteers to go to these places so that not all of us have to in order to learn the truth.
