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 some 912 persons in an isolated region of Guyana during the period 1976 to 1978. Having formed “The People’s 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.

About the author:

Born in Guyana in 1939, the author, Erwin Brewster, attended secondary school there and later read law at the Universities of Durham and of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, He married and his wife Pearl, also from Guyana, bore three children. On returning to Guyana he was employed first in the sugar industry then in the bauxite industry and later in the life insurance industry both at home and abroad. He retired in 2005 after 25 years of service in the insurance industry and now lives in Florida, USA. .
In his employment he managed several disparate activities and formed a good insight into the ambitions of people for themselves and their families and the difficulties they often faced in trying to attain their goals in this regard. He made it a cardinal policy to ensure that his own family was secure and their children exposed to the finest education possible in his circumstances.
Among his extracurricular activities he played basketball and took an interest in debating. An avid reader, he perused several books of poetry and literature both classical and modern during his working life and since his retirement this is his most favored pastime together with a keen interest in genealogical research into his ancestry and origins. This latter activity he finds most time consuming and also most rewarding. He has authored a book on his ancestry, which is only for distribution to his family.