A Review of The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forche’

In the introduction to The Poet’s Tongue, W.H. Auden and J. Garrett state that “Poetry is not concerned with telling people what to do, but with extending our knowledge of good and evil, perhaps making the necessity for action more urgent and its nature more clear, but only leading us to the point where it is possible for us to make a rational and moral choice.” Carolyn Forche lives up to W. H. Auden’s and J. Garrett’s definition of the nature of poetry with the heart of a humanist and the power of her words, she gives voice to El Salvador that is waiting to be heard. Sometimes this voice is delightful and rich with charm and sometimes it wails of horriffic human torture.

The Country Between Us is a collection of experiences that occurred during the late Seventies. The first poem, “San Onofre, California” ends with two haunting lines that immediately capture the sympathy of the reader: “the cries of those who vanish/ might take years to get here (9).” It is this idea of “the cries” and “the voices” of the people of El Salvador that dominates the imagery and theme in this collection.

Forche’, as the narrator, plays the role of observer, being objective when appropriate and sentimental when called for. These poems contain a great deal of honesty, perfect detail, and brutish truth while never ceasing to be beautiful. She writes:

“You will fight/ and fighting, you will die. I will live/ and living cry out until my voice is gone/ to its hollow earth, where with our/ hands and by the lives we have chosen/ we will dig deep into our deaths (21).”

In a world where death is not only expected to come unnaturally but sometimes welcomed as an end to suffering, passion for a cause can enable the loss of one life to become a sacrifice for the better of others. This may be a statement that we can call “political” from the outside but in El Salvador to die for rights is honor. “These are the flowers we bought/ this morning, the dahlias tossed/ on his grave and bells/ waiting with their tongues cut out/ for this particular silence (14).” Silence is Forche’s enemy and the enemy of the peoples this country.

In the poem “Endurance,” we find a person loved dearly by the narrator. Forche’ described the voice of a women named Anna and with images that wouldn’t seem to be associated at all with a human voice but fit perfectly to produce an audial image. ” Anna. Peeling her hands/ with a paring knife, saying in your country/ you have nothing. Each word was the husk/ of a vegetable tossed to the street/ or a mountain rounded by trains/ with cargoes of sheep-dung and grief (27).” Sometimes it is hard to see clearly what it is that Forche’ sees as important. But it is not hard to realize that she finds a special richness among the Salvador people and their culture. She compares American culture with that of El Salvador: “To my country I ship poetry instead/ of bread, so I cut through nothing./ I give nothing, so you see I have/ nothing, according to myself/ . . . I am xaloc, a wind/ from the southwest as far away/ as my country and there is nothing/ to help me in or out of it (12).” In awe of the people and event surrounding her, detachment can be sensed in the tone of some of the poems like this one.

The second half of the book seems to change focus from the actual experienced of the narrator to the person the narrator becomes and life the narrator lives with the knowledge of true human suffering and joy. The poems turn inward from the lives and politics of El Salvador to the childhood, adolescence and adulthood of the narrator.

In the poem “Departure,” this progression is documented with the opening lines “We take it with us, the cry/ of a train slicing a field/ leaving a stiff suture, a distant/ tenderness as when rails slip/ behind us and our windows/ touch the field, where it seems/ the dead are awake and so reach/ for each other (33).” Although she wrote for the spirit of the people of El Salvador, she continued to live, travel, and write with that spirit in mind.

There is amazing skill in the writings of Carolyn Force’. Her words are inspiring and engrossing. Reading The Country Between Us is like reading a novel or watching a movie that never fails to surprise you with something new each time. She can breath life into words with phrases like “the black and white collapse of hours (45),” “behind the blind/ whit hills and a scant/ snow ticking in the stars (39),” and “in a city of liquor bottles and light (55).” And there is much to learn from her abrasive use of rhythm that can make you feel as if you are reading another language or a language translation. In many ways, this collection of twenty-two poems is a translation of poetry from another language. Rather, it is a translation of the language of the people of El Salvador into poetry.