Poetry of Witness

Mother of the term "poetry of witness," Carolyn Forche has long maintained her position as one of America's (and perhaps one of the world's) most aware poets. She dares to delve into global political and social issues, presenting storylines based on her own experiences as well as those of others to whom she has spoken.

Her 1978 poem "The Colonel," found below, is known for "centering on her now-famous encounter with a Salvadoran colonel who, as he made light of human rights, emptied a bag of human ears before Forché."

"'At their best,'" remarks one critic, "'Forché’s poems have the immediacy of war correspondence, postcards from the volcano of twentieth-century barbarism.'" Forche has done an impeccable job of melding her talent, profession, and concern for the condition of humankind into pieces like this:

The Colonel

What you have heard is true. I was in his house.
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol
on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on
its black cord over the house. On the television
was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles
were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his
hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings
like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of
lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes,
salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed
the country. There was a brief commercial in
Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk of how difficult it had become to govern.
The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel
told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the
table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to
bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on
the table. They were like dried peach halves. There
is no other way to say this. He took one of them in
his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a
water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of
fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone,
tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He
swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held
the last of his wine in the air. Something for your
poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor
caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on
the floor were pressed to the ground.

Biographical information courtesy of http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/carolyn-forche
The above poem was pulled from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-colonel/

Women Are Heroes: Global Artwork

JR, founder of the "Women are Heroes" project, travels throughout South America, Africa, Asia, and the United States in search of ordinary women who have exhibited laudable strength, leadership, and resilience when staring unfathomable hardship straight in the face. He photographs their faces and eyes up close and then recreates these snapshots as murals on public walls, bringing "a haunting human presence to harsh environments of social conflict." The results are striking.

View the full gallery online at http://www.jr-art.net/projects/women-are-heroes-brazil

Putting The Arts First

Schools everywhere are making cuts to save money, all too often at the expense of the arts. Below is an excerpt from the website of an organization that believes "arts education is essential to children's academic and social success." Spreading its impact to three different continents, ASTEP continues to expand on its mission to teach kids to use creativity as a tool to improve their lives.

"ASTEP was conceived by Broadway Musical Director Mary-Mitchell Campbell and Juilliard students to transform the lives of youth using the most powerful tool they had—their art. Today, ASTEP connects performing and visual artists with underserved youth in the U.S. and around the world to awaken their imaginations, foster critical thinking, and help them break the cycle of poverty.

From improving reading comprehension to advancing creative thinking, from teaching problem solving to fostering collaboration, arts education brings about significant improvements in children’s educational and social development.


We collaborate with our partners to tailor each program to address the specific risks youth face in their communities, such as substance abuse, gender inequality, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, gang violence, and teen pregnancy."

More information at www.asteponline.org

A Need For Peace: the Human Dimension of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

In a time where political discord is a basic component of everyday life, we each see the world from our own corner. We gain one perspective but lack all the perspectives that are not synonymous with our own. But when art as painful and powerful as the photography depicted below emerges, perhaps we should listen. Perhaps we should acknowledge the need for a wake-up call. Perhaps we should all step into line with one another instead of off to the left and right, so we can see these real world conflicts from the uninhibited human perspective: people are suffering and people are dying. Something must be done to save lives.

by Majed Hamdan

by Ali Ali

by Mahmud Hams

by Mohammed Saber




Hand Me Downs

Sarah Kay, a spoken word poet, shares her thoughts on the futility of inherited racial anger.

(Below is the transcription of the above video)

Hand Me Downs

I know

you’ve taken to wearing around your father’s hand me down anger,

but I wish that you wouldn’t.

It's a few sizes too big and everyone can see it doesn’t fit you,

makes you look silly,

hangs loose in all the wrong places

even if it does match your skin color.

I know

you think you’ll grow into it – that your arms will beef up after all the fighting

and it will sit on your shoulders if only you pin it in the right places with well-placed conviction.

The bathroom mirror tells you “you look good in it,”

that it makes your fists look a lot more justified

and when you dig your hands deep into the pockets you’ll find

stories he left there for you to hand out to the other boys

like car bombs.

And on the days when everything else is slipping through your fingers,

this you can wrap yourself inside of.

This will keep you warm at night, help you drift off to sleep with the certainty that

no matter what, it will still be there when you wake up.

And the longer you wear it, the better it starts to fit.

Until some of those stories are your own.

Maybe the holes in the sleeve are from the bullets you dodged yourself

so when it rips, snags on a barbed wire fence or someone else’s family,

don’t worry, because your mother and your sister will help mend it –

patch the holes, sew the tears, replace a button or two,

help you back into it and tell you

how proud they are of you – how good it looks on you – the same way it looked on your dad

and your granddad too

and on his dad before him

and on his father before him,

but back then – back then there was only sand.

Until someone drew a line.

Someone built a wall.

Someone threw a stone,

and the crack in the skull that it hit fractured perfectly outward like twigs on the branches of the limbs of a family tree.

So someone threw a stone back,

and each fracture, each tiny break,

wound itself together into thread.

The thread pulled itself around him, around your great, great, great, great somebody

and on the other side of that wall, they were knitting

just as fast and theirs fit them

just as well

but only in a slightly different shade.

So I’m asking, when the time comes, who’s gonna be the first one to put down the needle and thread?

Who’s gonna be the first one to remember that their grandpa suffered just as many

broken windows

broken hearts

broken bones,

and the first time you come down to dinner and your son is sitting at the dining room table with your hatred on his shoulders,

who’s gonna be the first one to tell him:

it’s finally time to take it off.

The Child: Desperation, Reflection, Spirit

Peru

Cambodia 

Ethiopia

Photos courtesy of Steve McCurry