The Sealey Challenge

(All my daily posts from The Sealey Challenge 2023 can be viewed via the link on my home page.)

The Country Between Us, Carolyn Forché(Jonathan Cape 1983)

I have only two references for the country of El Salvador. Oneis the Oliver Stone movie, Salvador, from 1986 starring James Woods,which was strongly critical of the US-supported military dictatorship. It isharrowing in parts, as the truth can be. The second reference is Carolyn Forché’spoem, ‘The Colonel’, written after visiting El Salvador as a human rightsactivist in the late 1970s. It’s a poem you should read. It’s a poem you shouldn’tread. If you do it’s a poem you’ll never forget. If you do, then also read herown account of writing the poem – links to both at the end.

In his poem, ‘In Memory of WB Yeats’, WH Auden famously said,‘Poetry makes nothing happen’. But then he went on to say, ‘…it survives/in thevalley of its making… it survives,/ A way of happening, a mouth.’ He’s notsaying that poetry is ineffective only that it doesn’t directlyinfluence things. It survives, its voice is preserved, it remembers; that’swhere its power lies.

Because if poetry was really ineffectual, poets would not bearrested and persecuted by regimes. An article in The Guardian from a couple of years ago sheds both anhistorical and contemporary light on the subject, link at end.

I will not say that the rights and liberties we experiencein this country are perfect. But I will say we are more blessed than others. Andperhaps that’s a reason for speaking out, against injustice, against prejudice,against wrong-doing, when we perceive them. Because we can.

Movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_(film)

Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49862/the-colonel

Forché’s account:

‘The Guardian’, Flogged, imprisoned, murdered: today, beinga poet is a dangerous job: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/05/flogged-imprisoned-murdered-today-being-a-poet-is-a-dangerous-job