Carolyn Forché, like Neruda, Philip Levine, Denise Levertov and others who have, in recent years, wed the "political" and the "personal," addresses herself unflinchingly to the exterior, historical world. In ["The Country Between Us"] her subject is primarily El Salvador, and her news is bleakly and succinctly stated: "What you have heard is true." (p. 13)

Carolyn Forché is blunt, unremitting, candid. There may be readers who object to her somewhat abstract—and apoetic—endorsement of a grief too great to have been experienced by any individual …, but her voice is never shrill or strident, and the horrific visions are nearly always contained within fully realized poems….

[In Forché's poetry, El Salvador] is a nightmare country lucidly presented….

Carolyn Forché's first book, "Gathering the Tribes,"… introduced a poet of uncommon vigor and assurance. "The Country Between Us" is a distinct step forward. Though one tends to remember...