WEBVTT

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That was a wonderful
introduction.

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Thank you so much, and
thank you for being here.

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I'm thrilled to be back in
Tucson and particularly,

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in the year of the 60th
anniversary of the Poetry

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Center.

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You have a lot to be
proud of here for that.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Congratulations.

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You've built one of the most
important poetry centers

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in the world.

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You know that.

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I'm really happy to be here.

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And I'm actually going
to begin with some prose.

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I'm saving the poetry
for the place of honor.

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When I was 27 years old,
teaching at San Diego State

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University, I was living
in Encinitas, California.

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My roommate at that time
is here with me tonight.

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She was away for a few days.

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And while she was away,
I was grading papers

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and writing letters on behalf
of Amnesty International.

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We belonged to an
Urgent Action Network,

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which meant that we had to write
polite letters to dictators

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asking them to please
release and stop

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torturing their prisoners.

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So I was writing those
and grading papers,

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and the doorbell rang.

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And I wasn't expecting anyone.

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And I wasn't going to
answer the door at first.

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I'm the eldest of
seven children,

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and my mother trained
us never to answer

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the door when we were home alone
if we didn't know who it was.

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So I was going to do
what she taught us to do,

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which was to hide
until they went away

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and pretend we weren't home.

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But then, my
curiosity got to me,

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and I had to answer the door.

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So I answered it
with the chain on.

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And the man said, "You
are Carolyn Forché,

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and I am Leonel Gómez Vides,
and these are my daughters."

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There were two little
girls with him.

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I'd heard that name before.

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I had spent the previous
summer in Majorca Deia,

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Spain with Claribel Alegría.

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I was translating her
poetry that summer

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with my friend
Maya, her daughter.

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And this, Leonel Gómez
Vides, was one of Claribel

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Alegría's cousins.

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But they used to say
strange things about him.

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Like, he's very strange.

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He's very brilliant.

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He's like Robinhood.

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He sleeps on the ground with
his motorcycle in his arms.

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He gives his land
away to the peasants.

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He might be with the guerrillas.

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But probably, he
works for the CIA.

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So he was on my front porch.

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And I didn't know what to do.

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So I had him identify
some photographs

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I'd taken that summer.

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And then, when he did so, I took
the chain off and let him in.

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He spent three days and three
nights with his daughters

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with me.

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And he covered my table
with white butcher paper,

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and he drew cartoons and
drawings of everything

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that he talked about.

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He began with the
conquistadors and the conquest

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of the Americas.

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And by three days later, he was
drawing American helicopters

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over the mountains
of El Salvador,

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and telling me that
there was going

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to be a war there in
three to five years.

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And what he needed,
he said, "Was a poet."

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Because he wanted the poet
to learn all about the war

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so that the poet could come
back to the United States

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when the war began and explain
it all to the American people.

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So I explained to him
that a poet probably

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wasn't what he wanted for
that kind of explanation.

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And he said, "No, I need a poet.

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A poet will touch the heart.

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And I need hearts to
be touched because I

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need the American people to
oppose support for this war.

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And so that will
determine US policy.

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And that's going to
be very important."

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So I explained to him, just
how much influence poets

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have over US foreign policy in
matters of prosecution of war

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overseas.

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And I said-- then, I had
to explain to him how--

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at that time at least-- how
most Americans viewed poets.

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Well, so, no, I tried to be
gentle about it, but I said,

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we were kind of
a fringe element.

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And we were bohemians.

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And we died in bad hotels and
worse things happen to us,

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but we weren't influential
in the United States.

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And so he said, "Well,
you must change that."

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You know?

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So I'm going to
read-- he brought--

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I accepted his invitation.

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It's all in the book.

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You can read it there.

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But I don't have time
to do more introduction.

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I'm going to read a few
passages from the book

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so that you have a sense
of what it was like then.

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I did accept his invitation.

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I first went there
on January 4, 1978.

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It was not yet the war.

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It was the time of
the death squads,

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so it was a murderous time.

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And it was really
frightening for everyone.

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And so you're going to
hear some of that here.

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He wanted to show
me the whole country

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and not to tell
me what to think.

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He's the main
character of this book.

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He's very intriguing.

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He's very funny.

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He's hilarious.

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So despite what you will
hear in these passages,

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there are funny
things in the book.

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It does have some humor.

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And I was always-- he was taking
me to meet military officers

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all the time.

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He seemed to know
everyone in the country.

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And these military officers got
more and more interested in me

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as they began to think,
mistakenly, that I

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worked for the US Embassy.

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And they wanted to
impress the US Embassy

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with their knowledge of all
things happening in El Salvador

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because they wanted money--

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they wanted money
from the Americans

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to deliver information.

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So I would always ask
them about people who

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had disappeared and imprisoned.

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And Leonel told me this
is not such a good thing

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to be asking them.

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And so, finally, one day,
he pulled up to a place.

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And he said, "I tell you what--

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I want you to--

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are you willing to
go inside a prison?

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Because I can
arrange this for you.

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You will be visiting someone.

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You pretend you knew
them in the past.

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And he will show
you around inside.

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And I want you to see
as much as you can.

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And then, you can
tell human rights

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organizations about this place.

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And maybe they will visit.

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And maybe that
something will happen."

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So this is the prison.

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It was in Ahuachapan.

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I call the man Miguel in this.

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He did take me with him.

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Leonel wouldn't come with me.

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He said, "It's better
if you go by yourself."

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And I said, "Do you
think it'll be OK?"

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And he said, "You'll
have 30 minutes inside.

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I think you will
be OK," he said.

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He just thought so.

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So here is a little
bit of that time.

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