I grew up in a really odd technological age with a traditional family. There were a lot of rules surrounding technology for me. I would only be able to watch TV at night with my family. I could watch Saturday morning cartoons. I was not allowed a computer in my room until I begged for it and proved I was responsible. And I was not allowed a phone until high school. All these rules seem like a lot today, but 20 years ago when I was born, they made sense.

I remember being young and so jealous of all my friends who could watch TV whenever they wanted for as long as they wanted, the ones who had iPads and unlimited screen time, and the ones who had no rules surrounding the technology. 

When I reached a certain age, though, I stopped being envious and was glad that my parents pushed me to do well in school and refrain from letting technology take over my life. I am now in college and have unlimited screen time, and I no longer doubt the phrase, “It will rot your brain.” I have seen what it has done to my peers, and, unfortunately, me as well. I am happy that my parents introduced me to the concept of reading and writing when they did, because they unknowingly shaped me. 

My friends got in trouble for staying up late on their phones while I was getting in trouble for sneaking a book and a flashlight to read under my blanket. Books became a safe space for me, just like they have become for so many before me, and hopefully after me. I was in a new world, a world where I went to school with Junie B. Jones, where the B stands for Beatrice. I went on adventures in a magic tree house where I saw the world and tried to not interfere. I traveled around the world and saw everything that I still one day dream of one day seeing. I met my idols–Hermonie Granger, Tris Prior, Asher, Katniss, Sherlock Holmes, and so many more. I lived the life that I always wanted to.

I am who I am because I lived in a world of books. I focused on always wanting to learn more. I pushed myself everywhere I could. I am now a junior in college pursuing my dreams. I am studying political science so I can eventually go to law school and become a judge. I am also studying English, so I can make the little me inside me happy by discussing and reading books every day. I am interning here at SAFTA, so I can have an outlet where I write and interact with those who are making the books that future little girls will be reading under their blankets. 

I am one to take every opportunity that comes my way. Life is truly what one makes of it. I have been able to travel to another country to teach English to children, to volunteer in prisons to help inmates get their GED, and to plan and run events with multi-thousand dollar budgets, all while working to pursue my education. Sometimes I feel that my life is a book that I would have loved to read as a child. A book about a young girl who does everything she can despite so many obstacles. A book filled with adventures and a plot twist at every corner. 

I’ve been really lucky in life. I have a family who pushed me to read and write and use every part of my brain. I have friends who challenged me to do more and be the best version of myself. And I have books. Books that opened my eyes to a world on paper that I could step into whenever I felt alone.

Zoe Sweet is a writer, editor, and intern located in Chester, PA. She serves as the editor of Widener Ink, Widener’s literary journal, writes for The Blue and Gold, and is an intern at SAFTA. She is currently studying Political Science and English with hopes of one day being a judge.

Caroline Mar’s Dream of the Lake (Bull City Press, 2022) explores the implications of generational trauma and the ways in which it manifests. This poetry collection captures the heaviness of grief that runs deep in the blood in conversation with the Chinese railroad workers who lost their lives during construction. Mar’s use of water metaphor embodies the absence of those lost and the ache that flows through those left behind.

The speaker questions their own identity and what loss means for them almost immediately, posing the question early on, “Where can I set this inheritance down?” Mar demonstrates this internal struggle of knowing who you are, and grappling with parts of yourself that have been missing for so long. Going on, the loss of breathing and feeling of confinement act as a parallel between the physicality of actual death in relation to the speaker’s identity. These drowning sensations turn the speaker’s grief into a pain that is visual, noting “It takes a certain force to move your limbs // as you tread water.”

In a thread of poems, Mar takes a more visceral approach in portraying the parallel between physicality and mentality through the process of drowning. The first stage captures the newness of feeling someone’s death, a fresh wound, as the speaker writes, “I have felt this shock in my own body. The delicate line // between body and brain” and “: fear of being found // : fear of being found too late.” In the second stage, Mar demonstrates the disconnect from the nature of drowning to the speaker’s own denial to tragedy. “When the waters rose, the forest stayed…” and “Sometimes a person isn’t a person at all, but a weight // to be freighted onto someone else’s shoulder” show how isolating numbness can be, and how sometimes, that’s all that can be felt when we carry our trauma with us.

One thing about loss is that you mull over all the different ways you lost that part of yourself. After establishing the initial drowning stages, the speaker revisits the rest of the natural world and elucidates the elements of grief through naturalistic imagery. Mar creates a longing for what once was through the ways the speaker interacts in the world, writing “… & look // I’ve become this // for you,” and later “it slips through one’s fingers even // if you press them tight.” Following closely, the pursuit of picking up those pieces of identity and rediscovering oneself after loss is seen here: “an ocean away from where you are not // a guest // where are you from // people ask me // ask people who look // like me.”

“Correspondence,” a nineteen-page prose piece, addresses the devastation of the speaker’s loss through a plethora of unanswered questions, encapsulating the whirlwind of acceptance of knowing you have to live with your grief. Mar addresses the unrest left by someone’s absence, “No body means nobody to bury // no body // to call home,” and the ways in which we look to fill those gaps, “Heaven could be the color of this water // at precisely twenty-two feet deep.” The evolution of the speaker’s grief comes full circle when they answer their own query, “I know the answers. There are // no answers. I am the only // possible outcome here.”

Dream of the Lake redefines what it means to live through generational grief, and how, in turn, ancestral pain lives through us. Mar shows us how our pain takes shape within multiple facets of grief, each one irrevocably lasting.

Purchase Dream of the Lake here!

Zoe Sweet is a junior at Widener University, where she is a double major of English and Political Science with a minor in Legal Studies and Analysis. She is the vice president of her school’s literary journal, along with being on the executive board or a general member of a multitude of other clubs and activities. When not studying or working, she is active on campus, volunteers in the local prison, and spends time with friends. She loves reading and writing, and hopes one day to be a judge.