As a poet, Gwendolyn Bennett memorializes the various ups and downs of her life in her writing. She takes no pains to conceal her negative emotions nor to prefer the positive ones. Poems like "Hatred" and "Epitaph" approach a depressive bent. In these texts she admits a kind of emotional defeat. Bennett struggles to find hope for the future, preferring instead to dwell upon the injustices of her past, and completely ignoring the circumstances of the present.
Bennett provides her reader with insight into the nature of her melancholy in some of her poems. She expresses a sort of passivity about her life. To her, the potential of the future is irrelevant. The future is already decided. This attitude of hopelessness is determined by disappointments in her present life, such as not having had a child yet as she writes in "Epitaph." She's lost hope that she will ever have the chance to be a mother. Similarly, in "Train Monotony," she writes about the endless stretch of her life. She understands the cyclical nature of existence, but she desires an end which she feels is unattainable.
Overall, Bennett demonstrates growth and change in her poems. They are reflections of her state of mind as well as intimate confessions of her fears and hopes. Both equally dangerous, the fear prevents her from engaging in daily life, and the hope sustains her seemingly impossible desire. As she writes in "Heritage," Bennett wants to reconnect with her homeland, Egypt, but she proceeds no further than desire. She takes little action to give herself fulfillment, but she does manage to change her attitude. The relationship to her past lover in "Hatred" transforms into a kind of resolute acceptance of intimacy in "Untitled."
