Bleak non-rhyming poem, by female poet, ends with phrase "Small world."

June 19, 2019 6:19 PM

More than 10 years ago, I read a mercilessly hopeless poem by a female writer, in free verse or blank verse: it described the experience of being weighed down and worn away by dreary banalities and daily helplessness until your life is a tiny choking narrow barren place. Small world.
posted by nicebookrack to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

This doesn't seem quite bleak enough to mach your description, but maybe?
https://www.theagilmore.net/poem
posted by The Devil's Grandmother at 10:52 AM on June 20, 2019

i used to live in the world (then i moved to harlem), by ntozake shange?
posted by pseudostrabismus at 11:35 AM on June 20, 2019

Response by poster: It's not the Thea Gilmore poem. I could be exaggerating the bleakness in my memory; my strongest memories are that the poem made me feel sad and it ended with the phrase "Small world." as almost an afterthought at the end of another longer sentence.

pseudostrabismus: It's not the Shange poem—I remember the poem having more standardized English spelling and punctuation—but the Shange poem feels similar enough in tone that the unknown poem may have been referencing Shange.
posted by nicebookrack at 3:02 PM on June 20, 2019