Carolyn Forché's poetry of witness, which engenders human empathy, subverts the dominant American poetic since World War II, which generally cultivates individuation. From early in her career Forché has been preoccupied with kinship, including cross-cultural kinship. Forché's work has renewed controversy about the relation of art to politics, about "suitable" subjects for poetry. Although the poet rightly argues (in "El Salvador: An Aide Memoire" and elsewhere) that all language is political, that "vision is always ideologically charged," she has nevertheless been categorized as a leading "political" poet. Her work has been compared to that of Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Pablo Neruda, and Anna Akhmatova--all anti-imperialist, politically engaged writers who promote global as well as personal kinship. The private anguish of Sylvia Plath's, Anne Sexton's, and Robert Lowell's confessional poetry provides a provocative contrast to the public issues of human rights violations...