Analysis Of Carolyn Forche's Poem 'The Colonel'

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The Colonel by Carolyn Forché is about her experience when she goes to El Salvador and meets this honored officer. She was let into his house where she experienced something she will never forget, an experience that she put into a beautiful words to make readers feel what she felt that day. Thats what Carolyn does; she takes her experiences in her life and puts them into words, words that help her readers feel the way she felt, and help’s them see what she saw. Carolyn Forché is an astonishing poet who was born in 1950 in Detroit, Michigan. Carolyn is not only a poet but an activist and a teacher. She writes poems about the things that she has observed and been present at times of stunning and disastrous events. She brings the political aspects …show more content…

In the poem, Forche recounts, “ 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”. Imagine sitting at a table and someone just dumping human ears front of you with no sympathy. What would you have done? He was one of the men in the military going around killing many people within the towns. He must have like to keep the ears of those he killed personally, as if it was some sort of trophy to him. No remorse of the lives he took, innocent or guilty we will never know. He might not even know who they were. All he knew is he took their lives thinking he was doing the right thing. As Forche talks about her experience in one of her interviews with Bill Moyers, she mentions that some of the military thought she was with the US government. She talks about how they thought that she could help them, that the US would want their services, would want to pay them (Bill Moyers). “The Colonel” was about her dinner experience with the high-ranking officer, a very intoxicated and very angry officer who thought she was apart of the goveremnt. Many officers at the time were not happy with our government because of our human rights policy; they thought it was very hypocritical. His way of sending a message to The Carter administration was pouring his victims ears onto the

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