SPOKEN ~

Stevie Smith

Florence Margaret Smith, known as "Stevie Smith" (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971) was an English poet and novelist. Born in Kingston upon Hull, was the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith. She was called "Peggy" within her family, but acquired the name "Stevie" as a young woman when she was riding in the park with a friend who said that she reminded him of the jockey Steve Donaghue.

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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.


~ Stevie Smith
New Selected Poems 

(New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1988) 

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Novels ~

    Novel on Yellow Paper (Cape, 1936)
    Over the Frontier (Cape 1938)
    The Holiday (Chapman and Hall, 1949)

Poetry ~

    This Englishwoman (1937)
    A Good Time Was Had By All (Cape, 1937)
    Tender Only to One (Cape, 1938)
    Mother, What Is Man? (Cape, 1942)
    Harold's Leap (Cape, 1950)
    Not Waving but Drowning (Deutsch, 1957)
    Selected Poems (Longmans, 1962) includes 17 previously unpublished poems
    The Frog Prince (Longmans, 1966) includes 69 previously unpublished poems
    The Best Beast (Longmans, 1969)
    Two in One (Longmans, 1971) reprint of Selected Poems and The Frog Prince
    Scorpion and Other Poems (Longmans, 1972)
    Collected Poems (Allen Lane, 1975)
    Selected Poems (Penguin, 1978)
    New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith (New Directions, 1988)

Also ~

    Some Are More Human Than Others: A Sketch-Book (Gaberbocchus, 1958)
    Me Again: Uncollected Writings of Stevie Smith (Virago, 1984)
    "The Necessity of Not Believing" (Gemini No. 5, Spring 1958, Vol. 2, No. 1)