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Otherwhere: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2026
From a Pulitzer Prize finalist and central figure in American poetry, a landmark collection of new and selected poems chronicling five decades of work marked by moral courage, radical empathy, and unflinching witness.
Over half a century, Carolyn Forché has exemplified how a poet’s voice can cut through the cacophony of an age and speak to our inexhaustible responsibility to each other. Otherwhere spans her groundbreaking career, including the poems crafted in her early twenties from Gathering the Tribes (1976), a world of “horse-breath weather” and the whispering aspens of her grandmother’s language; the “poetry of courage and compassion” (Margaret Atwood) in The Country Between Us (1981) and the elegiac realm of In the Lateness of the World (2020), with its bygone friends, besieged cities, and dreams of the displaced.
Otherwhere gathers the finest poems of Forché’s body of work, selected by the poet herself, and includes a short new collection, If there is ink, which lights a signal fire in a state of emergency. In these new poems, Forché sifts through the new ruins of the present, conjuring the early days of an emergency where people “pretend to live as we have always lived,” and cautioning “There are no secrets to staying completely invisible, so they are not included here.”
Throughout these poems of unparalleled moral conviction, there resounds a “sense of to the fullness of lives unnecessarily [bound]; to poetry and its insistence on meaning; to attention and action, no matter the cost” (World Literature Today) that has defined Forché’s work—an inimitable, monumental contribution to American letters.
Over half a century, Carolyn Forché has exemplified how a poet’s voice can cut through the cacophony of an age and speak to our inexhaustible responsibility to each other. Otherwhere spans her groundbreaking career, including the poems crafted in her early twenties from Gathering the Tribes (1976), a world of “horse-breath weather” and the whispering aspens of her grandmother’s language; the “poetry of courage and compassion” (Margaret Atwood) in The Country Between Us (1981) and the elegiac realm of In the Lateness of the World (2020), with its bygone friends, besieged cities, and dreams of the displaced.
Otherwhere gathers the finest poems of Forché’s body of work, selected by the poet herself, and includes a short new collection, If there is ink, which lights a signal fire in a state of emergency. In these new poems, Forché sifts through the new ruins of the present, conjuring the early days of an emergency where people “pretend to live as we have always lived,” and cautioning “There are no secrets to staying completely invisible, so they are not included here.”
Throughout these poems of unparalleled moral conviction, there resounds a “sense of to the fullness of lives unnecessarily [bound]; to poetry and its insistence on meaning; to attention and action, no matter the cost” (World Literature Today) that has defined Forché’s work—an inimitable, monumental contribution to American letters.
- GenresPoetry
272 pages, Hardcover
Published September 8, 2026
About the author
Carolyn Forché
65 books428 followersCarolyn Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1950. She studied at Michigan State University and earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University. Forché is the author of four books of poetry: Blue Hour (HarperCollins, 2004); The Angel of History (1994), which received the Los Angeles Times Book Award; The Country Between Us (1982), which received the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and was the Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets; and Gathering the Tribes (1976), which was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets by Stanley Kunitz. She is also the editor of Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (1993). Among her translations are Mahmoud Darwish's Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems with Munir Akash (2003), Claribel Alegria's Flowers from the Volcano (1983), and Robert Desnos's Selected Poetry (with William Kulik, 1991). Her honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1992, she received the Charity Randall Citation from the International Poetry Forum.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 11, 2026
I’ve only gotten into poetry in recent years and I mostly read new releases so I was unfamiliar with this author’s work. I’m so very happy the publisher reached out to offer me an eARC, because her poems are SUCH a treat. This collection includes some of the most stirring and beautiful poetry I’ve ever read about living through war, including the current conflict in Ukraine. This author’s poems feel like lyrical journalism or a poetic travelogue. There is such a strong sense of time and place. My absolute favourite poem in this collection is a long one. It spans pages upon pages, but each line is arranged in precise alphabetical order. Somehow it works and doesn’t feel at all contrived—in fact, it took me a few pages to realize the lines were alphabetical. This poet is truly a master of her craft!
Thank you to the publisher for giving me access to an eARC of this book!
Thank you to the publisher for giving me access to an eARC of this book!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Many moons ago I had the pleasure of taking Carolyn Forché's 'Poetry of Witness' class as an undergrad and was very excited when I saw this pop up as an ARC.
This collection of Forché's life work in poetry is heart-wrenching, beautiful, and sad. Having lived through many major global tragedies, her words reflect their endless impact. The memories, the tiny details in events that seem to big to sometimes comprehend, as well as the humanity and seeking of place in this universe. It's difficult to summarize a reaction so someone's life work but I enjoyed the journey through these pieces very much. Naturally I took several months to work my way through this and let my thoughts sit with me, and several of the poems really stuck with me throughout the time.
Thank you ever so much to Scribner, Carolyn Forché, and Netgalley for this e-ARC.
This collection of Forché's life work in poetry is heart-wrenching, beautiful, and sad. Having lived through many major global tragedies, her words reflect their endless impact. The memories, the tiny details in events that seem to big to sometimes comprehend, as well as the humanity and seeking of place in this universe. It's difficult to summarize a reaction so someone's life work but I enjoyed the journey through these pieces very much. Naturally I took several months to work my way through this and let my thoughts sit with me, and several of the poems really stuck with me throughout the time.
Thank you ever so much to Scribner, Carolyn Forché, and Netgalley for this e-ARC.
August 31, 2026
Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC of "Otherwhere" by Carolyn Forché.
Carolyn Forché's "Otherwhere" is a difficult book to read. Not because of her style or the composition of the poems, but because the subjects are so weighty with pain and sorrow, with suffering and injustice and inhumanity. These poems discuss living through war. They talk about being othered, being made less-than, becoming scapegoats.
This is not light poetry. This is a call to bear witness. It is a call to remember and acknowledge. Ignoring the past, or worse yet, pretending it didn't happen leads to the same kind of oppression and violence, much of which we are already seeing. We were put here to make this world a better place, not tear each other down.
Forché's poems will make some people very uncomfortable. I suggest they read her words carefully. These poems will make people angry. They will make people cry. Read them anyway. Read and remember. It is through remembering that change is possible.
Carolyn Forché's "Otherwhere" is a difficult book to read. Not because of her style or the composition of the poems, but because the subjects are so weighty with pain and sorrow, with suffering and injustice and inhumanity. These poems discuss living through war. They talk about being othered, being made less-than, becoming scapegoats.
This is not light poetry. This is a call to bear witness. It is a call to remember and acknowledge. Ignoring the past, or worse yet, pretending it didn't happen leads to the same kind of oppression and violence, much of which we are already seeing. We were put here to make this world a better place, not tear each other down.
Forché's poems will make some people very uncomfortable. I suggest they read her words carefully. These poems will make people angry. They will make people cry. Read them anyway. Read and remember. It is through remembering that change is possible.
September 11, 2026
Carolyn Forché’s Otherwhere: New and Selected Poems 1976-2026 is a peculiar showcase of poetics able to meet any moment but the present.
Career-spanning collections are always fascinating. We get to see a poet’s voice bloom, mature, and ultimately self-curate the preservation of its own legacy. That’s even more the case for a poet whose work has been so politically engaged for so long. Forché’s “poetry of witness” invites us to ask what it means to observe so many crises for so many years—whether we can actually continue to watch without implication.
Because this is a mix of old and new poems, I want to touch briefly on Forché’s older selections before concentrating on the new additions in If there is ink. After all, if one is interested in the poet, it’s probably better to read the original collections in their entirety.
If there’s a common thread throughout the work presented here, it’s apocalypse. Forché has often been at the epicenter of geopolitical crises, and the speaker in her poems writes accordingly with imagistic urgency. In lines like, “Stiff air, same color as a child’s vein” from “Burning the Tomato Worms,” or the references to a bag of severed ears listening for justice in “The Colonel,” the author’s MO is to help readers be present with that which is unbearable. As we trace the arc of the poet’s voice throughout a fifty-year career, however, it’s easy to see a move toward the detachment of abstraction. That isn’t to say that the poems are bad, but what Forché identifies as polyvocality in her excellent opening essay feels more like the loss of any positionality.
By the time we arrive at the poems in If there is ink, which the poet says “explore collapsed time," it feels like our speaker is too overwhelmed to develop a premise—too fatigued to comment meaningfully on violence and too tired to craft a poem. Perhaps that’s the point. In pieces like the opener, “On Being Watched From Above,” we read a list of drone safety guidelines and await the catharsis of a turn, only to find that it never comes. It’s just safety guidelines. The comfort of interpretation never arrives. Similarly, “Hypothetical Museum” and “Last Room” share inverted pictures of the detritus of war—the instruments of violence created and the mundane pleasures lost. All we have are leftovers "unfit" for poetry. The futility is the point.
That said, it never tonally clicks in the way that something like Gathering the Tribes does, and I personally think it’s a reflection of how ill-equipped Forché’s “poetry of witness” is for our current reality. Witness in 1976 looks very different than witness in 2026; surveillance and documentation define crisis now, so the need has changed. Violence that may have been hidden in the past is now presented as a dare by those in power—watch closely. You can’t do anything. As such, the ripped-from-the-headlines approach doesn’t accomplish anything. There’s nowhere for the speaker to situate herself, and, even if that thematic tension is purposeful, I would argue that her attempts to do so feel fetishistic. We don’t need Forché to be the voice of a Ukrainian or a Palestinian because we already have meaningful access to Ukrainian and Palestinian voices. We just need to listen to them.
Witness must be more than voyeurism, but by the conclusion in the titular poem, “If there is ink,” that’s all we’re left with as the speaker wistfully imagines what it would be like if her pen could unwrite the consequences of war. Rather than feeling empathetic or like self-critique, it reads like a savior complex. The preceding poems have intentionally highlighted the limits of poetry, but this final stroke stumbles as the speaker walks it back with a curdled romanticization.
I finished Otherwhere feeling skeptical. Did I appreciate Carolyn Forché’s career? Most definitely. Did I feel like it was worth picking up this particular work? Not at all. Go read Gathering the Tribes.
Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC!
Career-spanning collections are always fascinating. We get to see a poet’s voice bloom, mature, and ultimately self-curate the preservation of its own legacy. That’s even more the case for a poet whose work has been so politically engaged for so long. Forché’s “poetry of witness” invites us to ask what it means to observe so many crises for so many years—whether we can actually continue to watch without implication.
Because this is a mix of old and new poems, I want to touch briefly on Forché’s older selections before concentrating on the new additions in If there is ink. After all, if one is interested in the poet, it’s probably better to read the original collections in their entirety.
If there’s a common thread throughout the work presented here, it’s apocalypse. Forché has often been at the epicenter of geopolitical crises, and the speaker in her poems writes accordingly with imagistic urgency. In lines like, “Stiff air, same color as a child’s vein” from “Burning the Tomato Worms,” or the references to a bag of severed ears listening for justice in “The Colonel,” the author’s MO is to help readers be present with that which is unbearable. As we trace the arc of the poet’s voice throughout a fifty-year career, however, it’s easy to see a move toward the detachment of abstraction. That isn’t to say that the poems are bad, but what Forché identifies as polyvocality in her excellent opening essay feels more like the loss of any positionality.
By the time we arrive at the poems in If there is ink, which the poet says “explore collapsed time," it feels like our speaker is too overwhelmed to develop a premise—too fatigued to comment meaningfully on violence and too tired to craft a poem. Perhaps that’s the point. In pieces like the opener, “On Being Watched From Above,” we read a list of drone safety guidelines and await the catharsis of a turn, only to find that it never comes. It’s just safety guidelines. The comfort of interpretation never arrives. Similarly, “Hypothetical Museum” and “Last Room” share inverted pictures of the detritus of war—the instruments of violence created and the mundane pleasures lost. All we have are leftovers "unfit" for poetry. The futility is the point.
That said, it never tonally clicks in the way that something like Gathering the Tribes does, and I personally think it’s a reflection of how ill-equipped Forché’s “poetry of witness” is for our current reality. Witness in 1976 looks very different than witness in 2026; surveillance and documentation define crisis now, so the need has changed. Violence that may have been hidden in the past is now presented as a dare by those in power—watch closely. You can’t do anything. As such, the ripped-from-the-headlines approach doesn’t accomplish anything. There’s nowhere for the speaker to situate herself, and, even if that thematic tension is purposeful, I would argue that her attempts to do so feel fetishistic. We don’t need Forché to be the voice of a Ukrainian or a Palestinian because we already have meaningful access to Ukrainian and Palestinian voices. We just need to listen to them.
Witness must be more than voyeurism, but by the conclusion in the titular poem, “If there is ink,” that’s all we’re left with as the speaker wistfully imagines what it would be like if her pen could unwrite the consequences of war. Rather than feeling empathetic or like self-critique, it reads like a savior complex. The preceding poems have intentionally highlighted the limits of poetry, but this final stroke stumbles as the speaker walks it back with a curdled romanticization.
I finished Otherwhere feeling skeptical. Did I appreciate Carolyn Forché’s career? Most definitely. Did I feel like it was worth picking up this particular work? Not at all. Go read Gathering the Tribes.
Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I will confess, somewhat embarrassingly, that I was unfamiliar with the poetry of Carolyn Forché before picking up this latest collection that includes a short new collection, "If there is ink," along with author-chosen selections from "Gathering the Tribes," "In the Country Between Us," and "In the Lateness of the World."
A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Forché's work is simultaneously universal yet remarkably intimate. "If there is ink" feels as if it's written for this very time, yet unlike so many pieces I've read about this time it doesn't feel like a sledgehammer. It feels personal. It feels engaging. It feels as if she has an understanding of the collective soul of a nation.
After this initial collection, "Otherwhere" takes us back into the Forché who first coined the phrase "poetry of witness" and the Forché who seems to build upon social responsibility. There's a fierce empathy here, an awareness of her own experience and also a willingness to bear witness to other universal truths.
As I began reading, I honestly wondered if I would connect to Forché's writing as the language was so different from my own. Yet, there's such a sense of presence in her language that it often felt as if she were reading it to me.
If you're only experience with poetry is simplicity and rhyming, Forché's writing can be unsettling. Yet, as I found her rhythm I found myself moved and engaged and challenged.
While this may have been my first Forché collection, it won't be my last.
A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Forché's work is simultaneously universal yet remarkably intimate. "If there is ink" feels as if it's written for this very time, yet unlike so many pieces I've read about this time it doesn't feel like a sledgehammer. It feels personal. It feels engaging. It feels as if she has an understanding of the collective soul of a nation.
After this initial collection, "Otherwhere" takes us back into the Forché who first coined the phrase "poetry of witness" and the Forché who seems to build upon social responsibility. There's a fierce empathy here, an awareness of her own experience and also a willingness to bear witness to other universal truths.
As I began reading, I honestly wondered if I would connect to Forché's writing as the language was so different from my own. Yet, there's such a sense of presence in her language that it often felt as if she were reading it to me.
If you're only experience with poetry is simplicity and rhyming, Forché's writing can be unsettling. Yet, as I found her rhythm I found myself moved and engaged and challenged.
While this may have been my first Forché collection, it won't be my last.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
Received from Goodreads book contest
First impressions matter
So, when you are reading a collection in August with a forward signed as created in a month that has not arrived, it creates a certain understanding of the reality of the author. She has quite the sweep in decades of poems. I believe that when you are looking at this body of work that she has been on a specific side of the Socio-political spectrum. I would offer this a poem from the 70s which embodies the oncoming rush of a particular mindset: woman needs a man like fish needs a bicycle and the current crop of women who have been made barren by time:
In the night I come to you and it seems a shame
to waste my deepest shudders on a wall of a man.
On to the good. This is a powerful collection, showing depth of historical literary understanding, a quick and detailed eye, and a love of the word which flows freely.
I was a young mother pushing a carriage then,
the little one trying to free himself (as he has now done),
/
the eyes of the dead were already
flying through the clouds in the bellies of birds.
/
Do Americans think of us?
/
... and my son, already disappearing as a man, moves toward his bed for the night,
/
Will his life open to hers, she asks, now that she has traveled all the way
to the edge of herself?
/
Open then to the coming of what comes.
Lovely sections, contained within a solid tome of poetry. Enjoy the read.
First impressions matter
So, when you are reading a collection in August with a forward signed as created in a month that has not arrived, it creates a certain understanding of the reality of the author. She has quite the sweep in decades of poems. I believe that when you are looking at this body of work that she has been on a specific side of the Socio-political spectrum. I would offer this a poem from the 70s which embodies the oncoming rush of a particular mindset: woman needs a man like fish needs a bicycle and the current crop of women who have been made barren by time:
In the night I come to you and it seems a shame
to waste my deepest shudders on a wall of a man.
On to the good. This is a powerful collection, showing depth of historical literary understanding, a quick and detailed eye, and a love of the word which flows freely.
I was a young mother pushing a carriage then,
the little one trying to free himself (as he has now done),
/
the eyes of the dead were already
flying through the clouds in the bellies of birds.
/
Do Americans think of us?
/
... and my son, already disappearing as a man, moves toward his bed for the night,
/
Will his life open to hers, she asks, now that she has traveled all the way
to the edge of herself?
/
Open then to the coming of what comes.
Lovely sections, contained within a solid tome of poetry. Enjoy the read.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I was especially pleased to receive an advance copy of Otherwhere, Carolyn Forché's upcoming poetry collection, featuring several new poems alongside selections from her earlier published works. Although I have some familiarity with the Forché's work, it has been many years since I spent concentrated time reading her poetry. This advance copy was a real treat for me.
Carolyn Forché writes powerful, courageous poems that implore us to pay attention to what’s happening in the world around us. Not to be read quickly, her collection is meaty and serious, and requires a level of immersion and attention for full impact. Her newest poems, gathered in a short collection titled “If there is ink,” feel particularly poignant and resonant in our current times. Carolyn Forché’s work is, indeed, “poetry of witness.”
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The collection will be published September 8, 2026.
4 stars.
Carolyn Forché writes powerful, courageous poems that implore us to pay attention to what’s happening in the world around us. Not to be read quickly, her collection is meaty and serious, and requires a level of immersion and attention for full impact. Her newest poems, gathered in a short collection titled “If there is ink,” feel particularly poignant and resonant in our current times. Carolyn Forché’s work is, indeed, “poetry of witness.”
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The collection will be published September 8, 2026.
4 stars.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
“If you read this poem, write to me
I have been to Paris since we parted.”
I love these lines after the story of her childhood friend, Victoria. Much has happened since childhood and it is embodied in this book.
This is a great collection that I would like to have in book form. Not only her newest poems but selections from other books of poetry.
Carolyn Forche’s poems always impressed me. I had the honor of hearing her read from Gathering the Tribes (1976) her very first book, in California, in my twenties, in hers. I connected with her Slavic background and loved the earthiness of her imagery. Ancestry.
Does the title Otherwhere refer to worlds gone by? Or that they are unreal— the things she has experienced? Or too real?
She has since done so much social activism and human rights work, all the while writing poetry. This book is a life.
I have been to Paris since we parted.”
I love these lines after the story of her childhood friend, Victoria. Much has happened since childhood and it is embodied in this book.
This is a great collection that I would like to have in book form. Not only her newest poems but selections from other books of poetry.
Carolyn Forche’s poems always impressed me. I had the honor of hearing her read from Gathering the Tribes (1976) her very first book, in California, in my twenties, in hers. I connected with her Slavic background and loved the earthiness of her imagery. Ancestry.
Does the title Otherwhere refer to worlds gone by? Or that they are unreal— the things she has experienced? Or too real?
She has since done so much social activism and human rights work, all the while writing poetry. This book is a life.
October 15, 2026
Otherwhere: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2026 by Carolyn Forché
Carolyn Forché's memoir is one of the best books I've ever read. I do wish I had a better grip on poetry in general to better appreciate her poetry. The newest poems in the collection definitely resonate with me more.
Reading history:
Normally I keep this in my private notes section, but I'm moving it. Yay!
Reading history was not added on Goodreads, but was instead kept on a small piece of paper with the book.
Started September 13th, 2026.
Finished October 5th, 2026.
September 13th, 2026: read introduction + pp. 1-13 in physical copy.
September 19th, 2026: read pp. 14-17 in physical copy.
October 2nd, 2026: read pp. 18-146 in physical copy.
October 3rd, 2026: read pp. 147-214 in physical copy.
October 5th, 2026: read pp. 215-acknowledgments in physical copy.
Carolyn Forché's memoir is one of the best books I've ever read. I do wish I had a better grip on poetry in general to better appreciate her poetry. The newest poems in the collection definitely resonate with me more.
Reading history:
Normally I keep this in my private notes section, but I'm moving it. Yay!
Reading history was not added on Goodreads, but was instead kept on a small piece of paper with the book.
Started September 13th, 2026.
Finished October 5th, 2026.
September 13th, 2026: read introduction + pp. 1-13 in physical copy.
September 19th, 2026: read pp. 14-17 in physical copy.
October 2nd, 2026: read pp. 18-146 in physical copy.
October 3rd, 2026: read pp. 147-214 in physical copy.
October 5th, 2026: read pp. 215-acknowledgments in physical copy.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for both the digital galley and the printed ARC version of Otherwhere!
Carolyn Forché is a true tour de force. Half a century worth’s of poetry shared here, detailing all that she has witnessed and inherited. Her work matures with each year of life lived, filled with grief and wonder equally. I found this read to be deeply somber and elegiac as well, and took my time to process some of the heavier sections. You don’t realize how many wars can occur over 50 years until confronted with it so directly as Forché shares in this collection. She does phenomenal job of making meaning of the travesties that follows one throughout life. This is a read that feeds the soul and sticks with you.
Carolyn Forché is a true tour de force. Half a century worth’s of poetry shared here, detailing all that she has witnessed and inherited. Her work matures with each year of life lived, filled with grief and wonder equally. I found this read to be deeply somber and elegiac as well, and took my time to process some of the heavier sections. You don’t realize how many wars can occur over 50 years until confronted with it so directly as Forché shares in this collection. She does phenomenal job of making meaning of the travesties that follows one throughout life. This is a read that feeds the soul and sticks with you.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you NetGalley and Scribner Books for the ARC!
Otherwhere is a collection of Forché’s selected poems across her various works.
These were good poems, and there were quite a few that I really enjoyed reading. However, I (personally) struggled to connect with most of them.
I liked how the author writes about war and its effects, but there were a lot of times when the poems lacked context, which made it difficult to connect to them. The author also likes to write in metaphors, and sometimes she strays a little too far into the abstract for my taste.
I think that readers who enjoy poetry, especially poetry with a lot of political themes, will really enjoy this.
CW: war; genocide; death; grief
Otherwhere is a collection of Forché’s selected poems across her various works.
These were good poems, and there were quite a few that I really enjoyed reading. However, I (personally) struggled to connect with most of them.
I liked how the author writes about war and its effects, but there were a lot of times when the poems lacked context, which made it difficult to connect to them. The author also likes to write in metaphors, and sometimes she strays a little too far into the abstract for my taste.
I think that readers who enjoy poetry, especially poetry with a lot of political themes, will really enjoy this.
CW: war; genocide; death; grief
Read
September 19, 2026"Otherwhere" is a powerful and thoughtful collection that brings together five decades of Carolyn Forché’s poetry, exploring war, displacement, memory, grief, and the responsibility people have to one another. The poems are often haunting and deeply emotional, but they also carry a strong sense of compassion and hope. Bringing together work from across her career, along with new poems responding to the uncertainty of the present, the collection shows how consistently Forché uses poetry to confront difficult realities and give voice to people and experiences that might otherwise be overlooked. It’s a moving and important body of work for readers who appreciate poetry that asks them to pay attention and think more deeply about the world around them.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Otherwhere, Carolyn Forché's New and Selected collection, spans 50 years of her work, from Gathering the Tribes (1976) to her newest sequence of poems, If there is ink (2026). The through line is trauma's weight on humanity—how it divides and distorts, leaving crumbs that we must assemble back into a life. In 2001 at the Connecticut Forum, Toni Morrison said, 'Sometimes you don't survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt.'
Forché's collections beautifully explore this attempt. From the use of found poetry in her latest work to her unflinching exploration of violence, she reveals how humanity fights for a semblance of a soul.
Forché's collections beautifully explore this attempt. From the use of found poetry in her latest work to her unflinching exploration of violence, she reveals how humanity fights for a semblance of a soul.
September 11, 2026
I received an ARC from the publisher, Scribner, and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Carolyn Forché’s work is new to me, but I truly loved this collection. The introduction is definitely a must-read.
It gives you a better sense of where the inspiration behind these poems comes from, while also providing some helpful context for understanding Forché’s style of writing.
I did a little research on Carolyn Forché, and I think the term “poetry of witness” describes her work perfectly. Her poetry feels raw, observant, and completely unsugarcoated.
There is this sense that these poems aren’t just telling you about something, but that they are bearing witness to it.
Carolyn Forché’s work is new to me, but I truly loved this collection. The introduction is definitely a must-read.
It gives you a better sense of where the inspiration behind these poems comes from, while also providing some helpful context for understanding Forché’s style of writing.
I did a little research on Carolyn Forché, and I think the term “poetry of witness” describes her work perfectly. Her poetry feels raw, observant, and completely unsugarcoated.
There is this sense that these poems aren’t just telling you about something, but that they are bearing witness to it.
August 12, 2026
I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this was my introduction to Forché’s work. These poems were heart-wrenching and emotional, filled with such beauty and loss. Forché is clearly a very talented poet and wordsmith. I loved that these selected works spanned a lifetime. I very much enjoyed her newest section of poems, with my favorite of the collection being “A Room”.
Thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
Thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and scriber publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. This was my first time reading poetry by Carolyn Forché. Most of the poems felt like a beautiful abstract mosaic. There were individual lines or phrases that took my breath away, but I didn’t ways understand what she was saying overall in the poem itself. I really loved The Lost Suitcase, The Letter to a City Under Siege, Morning on the Island, and A Bridge.
September 16, 2026
"Birds singing of the end when there is no end. Linens hanging to dry in dreams. The head of a blue deer stares out from a wall. It can't possibly be there. Ink on sleep. Light on paper." Carolyn Forché's poems of witness are both concrete and abstract, leaving room for imagination and empathy. A much-needed voice that passionately reminds us, across decades, of our responsibility to the world.
May 14, 2026
These collections of poems show Carolyn’s writing through the years. Expressing it with a poet’s voice. Reading it is like she’s telling a story. I like this book.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Review to come!
September 17, 2026
Fifty years of poems that sing, see, and bear witness.
September 22, 2026
This is an astonishing work. 50 years of poetry, and the new poems are stunning. This is one of the most important poetry books of the century and a book I’ll return to again and again.
October 2, 2026
I loved this collection of poems. If you enjoy poetry, you will enjoy this book. I was a new reader to Carolyn Forche. I was lucky enough to receive this book as a goodreads.com giveaway. I must say I will continue to seek out her books, she is extremely talented. I have already told all my friends and family how much I enjoyed this book, and plan on buying a few copies for holiday gifts.
July 4, 2026
i love these collections that span over decades. being able to bear witness to a poet’s changing style, perspective, and experience is a genuine gift. how brave and beautiful it is to openly document life through someone else’s imagery, someone else’s attention. her latest work really speaks volumes about our current social climate in a way that only a poet can.
thank you to scribner books for the advanced release copy in exchange for an honest review!!
thank you to scribner books for the advanced release copy in exchange for an honest review!!
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