Jonestown Remembered and Other Shorter Tragedies

Jonestown Remembered is a poem about those who lost their lives as a result of the machinations of one individual who sought to direct the lives of some 912 persons in an isolated region of Guyana during the period of 1976 to 1978. Having formed the Peoples Temple in California, he transferred his activities to a country that was anxious to accommodate him without reserve or supervision. His name was Jim Jones. He felt that his view on how life was to be lived was unique and admired the socialist ideology. But all was not well with the administration of the community, which eventually climaxed with the deaths by suicide and murder of all its members save a few who had escaped.

The poem seeks to recount the trials of the occupants of the Temple, their sense of abandonment at having been removed from the comfort and camaraderie of their friends, and their feelings of impotence to do anything about it. But still, for some, this experience was a deliverance from a much worse condition of life that they had experienced in the US. These felt that they owed allegiance to their leader, who had made their lives worthwhile for the first time. The poem seeks to explore both these responses and how the final sacrifice or deliverance was accomplished.

Other poems of tragic loss are included in the book that suggests that life is not always a bed of roses; that the joy and happiness derived from love is often a prelude to tragedy and sorrow. That the love and contentment derived from a life well spent will come to an end, inevitably, with the final parting, and loved ones are left in their solitude.