In the late 1970’s the Salvadorian regime was a totalitarian government that raped, murdered, and brainwashed their citizens. Carolyn Forche was invited to visit El Salvador and saw something that she had never wanted to witness. “The Colonel” was a first hand poem about Carolyn Forche’s Experiences in El Salvador and the awful events she witnessed. She had used these experiences not to haunt her, but to spread awareness about this Central American crisis through poetry. Carolyn Forche’s meaningful experiences in El Salvador heavily influenced several of her writings including her poem “The Colonel”.
Forche was born on April 28, 1950 to her dad, Michael Joseph, and her mom, Louise Nada. Her father was a tool and die maker and her mother was a journalist (“Carolyn Louise Forche” 1)…show more content… I thought the ending was very strong and could be interpreted in many different ways. It also made me think about how the world is much bigger than the bubble that communities live in. My favorite thing about Forche was how she got the word out about war wrongdoings in El Salvador in a very mature manner. My first impression of this poem was that I thought it was much more symbolic than it was written to be. When I first read “The Colonel” I thought the Colonel was a drunk father and the narrator was his children being yelled at by “The Colonel”. When doing research into Forche, I found out that this poem was written to be very literal and not as symbolic as some thought. The poems style and structure were very interesting and unique with a conclusion that left the poem open for interpretation even though Forche had an obvious point that needed to be conveyed. The fact that she wrote a very powerful poem that aroused a whole Salvadorian regime in 25 lines showed Forches true
