15 Facts About Carolyn Forche

Carolyn Forche was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Michael Joseph and Louise Nada Blackford Sidlosky.

Carolyn Forche earned a bacherlor's degree in Creative Writing at Michigan State University in 1972, and Master of Fine Arts at Bowling Green State University in 1975.

Carolyn Forche's has taught at a number of universities, including Bowling Green State University, Michigan State University, the University of Virginia, Skidmore College, Columbia University, San Diego State University and in the Master of Fine Arts program at George Mason University.

Carolyn Forche is a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Scranton, the California Institute of the Arts, Marquette University, Russell Sage University, and Sierra Nevada College.

Carolyn Forche's was Director of Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice, and held the Lannan Visiting Chair in Poetry at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, where she is a University Professor.

Related searches

Carolyn Forche's is co-chair, with Gloria Steinem, of the Creative Advisory Council of Hedgebrook, a residency for women writers on Whidbey Island.

Carolyn Forche has held three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1992 received a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship.

Carolyn Forche's is a trustee for the Griffin Poetry Prize.

Carolyn Forche's has given poetry readings in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Belarus, Finland, Sweden, Republic of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Libya, Japan, Colombia, Mexico and Canada.

Carolyn Forche's proposed that such works not be read as narrowly “political” but rather as “poetry of witness.

Carolyn Forche is particularly interested in the effect of political trauma on the poet's use of language.

Carolyn Forche is influenced by her Slovak family background, particularly the life story of her grandmother, an immigrant whose family included a woman resistance fighter imprisoned during the Nazi occupation of former Czechoslovakia.

Carolyn Forche was raised Roman Catholic and religious themes are frequent in her work.

Carolyn Forche appeared in the Ken Burns Oscar-nominated documentary The Statue of Liberty in 1985.

In November 2013, Carolyn Forche was interviewed as both scholar and poet for the documentary Poetry of Witness, directed by independent filmmakers Billy Tooma and Anthony Cirilo.