Page 22 - April 2024 Newsletter

THE POETRY PAGE

Born Florence Margaret
Smith in Hull, Yorkshire in
1902, Stevie Smith moved
with her family to the North
London suburbs when she
was three, then lived in the
same house the rest of her
life. She graduated from the
North London Collegiate
School and went on to work as a secretary. She published several
collections of short prose and letters as well as nearly a dozen
volumes of verse. Although the nursery-rhyme-like cadences of
her poems and the whimsical drawings with which she illustrated
them suggest a child’s innocence, Stevie Smith was a
sophisticated poet, whose work was much concerned with
suffering and mortality. Her rather macabre sense of humour can
shock, as in her most famous poem, “Not Waving But Drowning.”

Not Waving but Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

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