poetry of witness

In this performance, Carolyn Forché reads from her first three books, discussing the influences for the poems as she reads them.

Carolyn Forché reads from The Country Between Us (1981), the Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets for 1982. In the middle of the performance, she reads excerpts from and discusses El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers (1981), which influenced the poems in this reading.

Carolyn Forché reads from her collection Blue Hour (2003) as well as unpublished and uncollected work. This reading includes a performance of excerpts from her famous long abecedarian, "On Earth."

Brian Turner reads from Here, Bullet (2005). This reading was originally given with Srikanth Reddy and Joshua Marie Wilkinson.

Carolyn Forché reads from her first three collections of poetry, Gathering the Tribes (1976), The Country Between Us (1981), and The Angel of History, which would be published three years after this reading. She also speaks about French Surrealist poet Robert Desnos and reads her translator's note to The Selected Poems of Robert Desnos (1991).

Carolyn Forché reads excerpts from her memoir What You Have Heard Is True (2019) and poems from her collection In the Lateness of the World (2020).