Gathering the Tribes (Yale Series of Younger Poets)

The language and images of Carolyn Forch©€s poetry are so closely bound to the natural cycles of the seasons, of generations, of the body€s functioning, that it is surprising to realize how many of her poems deal with uprootedness-hasty emigrations from Czechoslovakia and Kiev, the loss of grandparents and other elders, people leaving and being sent away. But this poetry is not a sentimental celebration of the goodness of nature, and harmony with the world is never something assumed. The harmony Forch© seeks goes deeper than simple submission to natural processes or identification with an ethnic group, and it must be fought for with a tenuous faith, the balance that must be found between the ugliness, the harshness of her history-both natural and social-and its intense beauty, is what distinguishes Forch©€s poetry, gives it is depth and dimension.