In 1978, 900 inhabitants of the utopian community Jonestown in Guyana were persuaded to poison themselves with cyanide by the Reverend Jim Jones. Those who refused to do so were shot. The people who settled in Jonestown came to found a radically equal new society ; the Reverend Jim Jones took over their minds and destroyed their dream. In this long narrative poem, Fred D, Aguiar tells the story of Jonestown from the point of view of a young man who has left London to join the community. The poems are an exploration of his state of mind as his idealism dwindles and he becomes increasingly helpless. Against the odds, he survives endless rain, famine, the seduction of the owman he loves by the lecherous Reverend who deflowers all the community's virgins, and, finally, the cyanide coursing through his veins. In verse that mixes linguistic registers with great innovation and moves through an exhilarating range of rhythms from the repititions of biblical language to the riffs of popular music, D'Aguiar looks at the nature of religious zealotry and the suffering and stalwartness of one of its victims. (19970815)
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Book Description
Prize-winning poet and novelist Fred D'Aguiar's new work is a brilliantly inventive narrative poem which takes the reader into the psyche of a young man caught up in the mass suicide that took place in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. (19970815)
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Bill of Rights, a narrative poem, is a new work by acclaimed poet and novelist Fred D'Aguiar. It tells the extraordinary story of the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana from the point of view of a young man who has been seduced by the false rhetoric of the Reverend Jim Jones. In verse that mixes a gallimaufry of linguistic registers and moves through an exhilarating range of rhythms from the repetitions of biblical language to the riffs of popular music, D'Aguiar looks at the nature of religou zealotry and the suffering and stalwartness of one of its victims.
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