NOTE

The poems in the “Dear History” section focus on a period in my family’s history and in Jamaican history from 1972 to 1981. In 1972, the year I was born, the leader of the leftist People’s National Party (PNP), Michael Manley, was elected Prime Minister. Under Manley’s direction, the PNP practiced “Democratic Socialism” throughout the 1970s. This, along with Manley’s diplomatic ties to Cuban President Fidel Castro, led to US involvement in Jamaican politics, including CIA destabilization operations within the country. In the year leading up to the general election of 1980, it is estimated that 800 to over 1,000 people out of a population of 2.5 million were killed in election related violence. In October of 1980, Edward Seaga, leader of the conservative Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), was elected Prime Minister. On May 11, 1981, Reggae superstar Bob Marley died of cancer. His funeral, held in Jamaica ten days later, was a moment of unification for a people who had been torn apart by almost a decade of ideological and political conflict. I emigrated from Jamaica to the US on the day of Marley’s funeral. My parents, both Rastafarians, were attending Marley’s funeral as my younger sisters and I left the island with our maternal grandmother.