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Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle. Carolyn Forché discusses her memoir of the same title, about her time in pre-civil war El Salvador in the late 1970s. Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
- Summary
- Themes
- Structure and Form
- Detailed Analysis
- Literary Devices
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Throughout this poem, the speaker details meeting and dinner she had, along with a friend, at the house of “the colonel.” There, life seems to progress normally, as it would in any other home. The colonel’s wife is there, along with his son and daughter. Together, they eat an expensive meal. One that seems unlikely to be gracing any other household...
In ‘The Colonel’ the poet engages with themes of war and responsibility. Through the text, her speaker, which may or may not be the poet herself, depicts the home life of “the colonel.” This brutally violent man is responsible for much of the death and destruction that’s occurred within El Salvador during the Civil War. While the war is not discuss...
‘The Colonel’ by Carolyn Forché is a prose poem written in the form of a “block” or a large paragraph. The poem does not make use of a metrical pattern or a rhyme scheme. It focuses more on the narrative than on poetic devices, although some are present. The prose poem, block format, is very appropriate for the subject matter of ‘The Colonel.’ It a...
Lines 1-7
In the first lines of ‘The Colonel,’ The speaker begins by stating, very clearly, that any rumors the reader might’ve heard about the speaker’s meeting with the “colonel” are true. She was at his house, alongside his wife, daughter, and son. These first mundane features of his life contrast powerfully with what comes next. His children act just like children do, and there are pet dogs and daily papers around. There are light examples of alliteration in these lines with “papers,” “pet,” and “p...
Lines 8-18
In the lines which follow, the speaker describes how the windows are barred as if they’re those of a liquor store. It’s interesting that this is the first thing that comes into her mind, while most people might go first to prison or jail cell. But, this distinction does confirm that they are to keep people out rather than in. The dinner was filling and luxurious, exactly what one would assume someone of the colonel’s ranking would choose. It’s obvious from the poet’s focus on the food items t...
Lines 19-26
In the final lines of the poem, the speaker uses figurative language to compare the human ears to “dried peach halves.” This is a disturbing comparison, one that she’s very aware will likely surprise and bother the reader. In anger, over nothing and everything, the colonel shakes one of the ears in their faces and then drops it in a water glass. There, it “came alive.” This suggests that it reanimated somewhat with the reintroduction of liquid. Although there is a dialogue in the following li...
Despite the fact that ‘The Colonel’ is a prose poem, readers can find several interesting literary devices at work within the text. These include enjambment and her use of end-punctuation. These two features are quite prominent throughout the poem. Forché uses sentences that range in length and are often cut off before they reach their conclusion. ...
Readers who enjoyed ‘The Colonel’ should also consider reading some similar poems. For example, ‘Parsley’by Rita Dove, ‘Song-Books of the War’ by Siegfried Sassoon, and ‘War Photographer’ by Carol Ann Duffy. The latter depicts the poet’s opinions toward society and the agonies of war, in addition to the lack of interest of humankind toward it. In ‘...
The poem describes a chilling dinner with a violent colonel who shows his bag of severed ears and rants about his role in the civil war. It explores themes of war and responsibility, and challenges the reader to choose a side.
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
The Colonel is a poem by Carolyn Forché, a human rights advocate and witness poet, who describes a gruesome scene of a Salvadoran colonel's house with a bag of human ears. The poem uses simple diction, symbolism, and metaphor to convey the horrors of the civil war and the colonel's complicity in violence.
The Colonel is a prose poem that depicts the horrors of the Salvadoran civil war and the atrocities committed by a colonel. It contrasts the normalcy of a dinner party with the gruesome display of human ears by the colonel.
More than one critic singled out her poem “The Colonel,” centering on her now-famous encounter with a Salvadoran colonel who, as he made light of human rights, emptied a bag of human ears before Forché.
The Colonel Lyrics. What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily...
The Colonel. Carolyn Forché. 1950 –. WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him.
