she had personal experince of the Salvadoran Civil War

Forché invented the term "documentary poem" for "The Colonel." This alternative form works partly because she sparingly employs traditional poetic forms as touchstones within it and partly because its seeming "artlessness" elicits belief from her readers.

"The longest poem, 'On Earth,' is a transcription of mind passing from life to death, in the form of an abecedary, modeled on ancient gnostic hymns. Other poems in the book, especially 'Nocturne' and 'Blue Hour,' are lyric recoveries of the act of remembering, though the objects of memory seem to us vivid and irretrievable, the rage to summon and cling at once fierce and distracted."--BOOK JACKET.