Have you ever heard of Ali Podrimja?

Probably not if you aren't Albanian.

He's a poet who grew up in Kosovo, lost his parents as a child and then his son died young. He writes tight, depressed poem that I love.

I know about him because of my friend Alma Lama, a TV gazetare (journalist) for Top-Channel TV in Prishtine. She met us for dinner one night and coffee the next day and then insisted that we walk to the English language bookstore tucked away behind the Mother Teresa statue on the main drag.

"I never heard of him," I told her when she said she was going to buy me a book by one of her favorite authors.

"Ah, that is the curse of little countries," she told me.

Here's my absolute favorite:

The Roads

There are two roads in life

One leads to the Garden
To the Toilet the other

In the Garden slithers the Serpent
Sewage Water in the Toilet

And you my clever friend
Choose which road to take