SOURCE: "Muses of History," in The Nation, New York, Vol. 259, No. 13, October 24, 1994, pp. 464-68.

[In the excerpt below, Bogen extols Forché's ability to document historical atrocities, individual experience, and political vision in The Angel of History, noting that the book is a breakthrough from Forché's earlier works.]

The history of our age is not the stuff of epic poetry. It has plenty of warfare, of course, but not much in the way of heroism; there is more bureaucratese than grandiloquence in the speeches of its leaders; and its chaotic pace would chew up any meter after a dithyramb or two. So what's a poet to do? Many tend their gardens. But a poetry that withdraws from the public concerns of its time for whatever reasons—aesthetic objections, information overload, lack of firsthand experience, indifference—impoverishes itself and its readers. We're left with the schizoid vision of...