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For 35 years, I've taught
Carolyn Forché's work in poetry

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workshops across the
country, considering her,

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along with Joy Harjo, Rita
Dove, Gwendolyn Brooks,

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Adrienne Rich, Linda Hogan, and
Naomi Shihab Nye to be among

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the most memorable and
brilliant poets of our times.

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I did not meet her or
her work in a classroom.

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My husband, Bill Root,
gave me her first book,

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Gathering the Tribes, winner
of a Yale Younger Award.

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I read it as we traveled up
Big Sur, the female power

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of huge Pacific breakers
echoing the power of her words.

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I was electrified by her
language, her bold imagery,

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her sensuality.

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That small book made
a big impression.

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So when I actually met her
in Port Townsend in 1980,

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in the Seagull Inn bar
overlooking Puget sound,

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I was thrilled.

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I was also in awe.

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Here was a poet my age, born
and raised a hundred miles

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from where I grew
up in Michigan.

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Our fathers were
blue collar workers.

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Carolyn also had a Czech
grandmother named Anna.

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I felt kinship.

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We had to talk.

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After that warm initial meeting,
I became a fan for life.

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And I mean for life.

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When Carolyn's collection, The
Country Between Us, came out,

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I immediately bought it.

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Devouring poem after poem,
I could barely speak.

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I was galvanized.

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I would never consider
poetry in the same way again.

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As it undoubtedly did for
poets across the country,

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Poetry of Witness set me afire.

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In my case, it validated
the political poetry

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I'd written for years.

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The Country Between Us was a
1981 Lannon Poetry Selection.

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I thought it
deserved a Pulitzer.

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A Ms. magazine reviewer
called the book,

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"a poetry of dissent
from a poet outraged."

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The book opened readers'
eyes to our government's

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obscene support of a
destructive and murderous

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military dictatorship.

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At the time, this was
not the kind of poetry

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that was being studied
in poetry workshops.

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Who can repeat
without shivering,

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"There is nothing that one
man will not do to another."

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It was 12 years between the
publication of The Country

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Between Us and Carolyn Forché's
editing of Against Forgetting,

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Twentieth-Century
Poetry of Witness,

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a keystone anthology
of 140 world poets,

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witnessing genocides from
Armenia to Tiananmen Square,

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that Matthew Rothschild called
some of the most dramatic

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anti-war and anti-torture
poetry written in this benighted

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country.

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Forché has said, "The poetry
of witness reclaims the social

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from the political, in so doing,
defends the individual against

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illegitimate forms of coercion."

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Whether she is writing about
crimes against humanity

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committed at Terezin during the
Holocaust or during the Soviet

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occupation of Prague, as she
does in her brilliant Angel

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of History, or creating surreal
visionary imagery of 20th

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century terrors, referencing
Buber and Heidegger,

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or taking us on a spirit journey
to the end of life and beyond,

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Carolyn Forché's oracular
imagery gives us poetic meat

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that is visceral,
powerful, unforgettable.

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Now we are blessed by her
moving and illuminating memoir,

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What You Have Heard Is True.

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Carolyn told me that, two weeks
ago, this book won the Juan E.

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Méndez Human Rights Book
Award for Latin America.

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They never give it to memoirs.

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[APPLAUSE]

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This memoir takes
us to the source

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of so many of her powerful
poems in The Country

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Between Us, to those devastating
times in El Salvador,

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illustrating our
country's responsibility

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for hideous atrocities committed
by the Salvadoran military

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regime, similar to the ongoing
atrocities committed today,

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even as I speak.

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In March, her new
collection of poems,

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In The Lateness
of The World, will

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be released by Random House.

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After the presidential election
in 2016 and early 2017,

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Bill and I conceived
of an anthology called,

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Truth to Power, Writers
Respond to the Rhetoric of Hate

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and Fear.

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Carolyn Forché was one of
the first poets I thought

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to solicit.

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For decades, Forché has made
us confront genocide around

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the world.

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In this time, when daily
human rights atrocities

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are rife in our
national headlines,

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hers is the poetry we need.

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As Bertolt Brecht wrote,
"In these dark times,

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will there also be singing?

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Yes, there will be singing.

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About the dark times."

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Carolyn Forché's preeminence
as a poet, translator, editor,

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and memoirist cannot
be overstated.

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Without her necessary voice,
her courage as a witness,

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empowered by her exquisite
command of craft,

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political poetry might have
remained, in our country,

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the invisible cousin
of academic verse.

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Her work has awakened
in readers, conscience.

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It is a call to resist.

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Carolyn, I thank
you in the language

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of our Czech grandmothers,
[Speaking Czech]

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Thank you for your poetry,
thank you for your truth.

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Please welcome Carolyn Forché.

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[APPLAUSE]

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