To Suffer, by Charlotte Lucas

Poetry, chapbook, 32 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

To Suffer is a collection of poems about the agrarian world and human kind’s relationship with nature. The poems draw on imagery of water, fruit, and soil to capture the simplicity of the world around people, and to showcase that the natural world is consistent throughout time.

Lucas also depicts the conflict between the natural world and contemporary society in the invention of war, drug addiction, and other human conflict. The existence of these issues goes against the harmony that the world once experienced.

Human relationships, and how people cope with these issues in life, are delved into as well. As the title states, To Suffer for someone is to love them despite knowing that that love may cause pain.

Charlotte Lucas attended Interlochen Arts Academy as a Creative Writing major on the Virginia B. Ball scholarship. She has been published or recognized in Crashtest, the DePaul’s Blue Book: Best American High School Writing 2023, and the Interlochen Review. She is originally from Maryland, and is a rising freshman at UC Berkeley.