Stevie Smith...

Works by Stevie Smith...

Stevie Smith was born in England in 1902 and died in London in 1971. Smth went to college at the North London Collegiate School for women. She won the Queen's gold medal award in 1969. She published eight volumes of poetry as well as three novels. She started her work at the young age of twenty two. Ten years later her first novel, Novel On Yellow Paper, was published. Stevie also worked at Newnes-Pearson serving as a personal secetary for Sir George Newnes.

Stevie Smith's writing style is unique and obtains an interseting sense of irony. She also is noted for using a variety of voices as well as playful meter.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES

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.

-Personal Interpretation-

(perhaps this is one of her most famous works)

The man in this poem seems as if he has been misunderstood his entire life. No one has been able to get to close to him and he feels like an outsider. I think that this poem leaves a very depressing image in all of its readers minds.

Valuable

(After reading two paragraphs in a newspaper)

All these illegitimate babies...
Oh girls, girls,
Silly little cheap things,
Why do you not put some value on yourselves,
Learn to say, No?
Did nobody teach you?
Nobody teaches anybody to say No nowadays,
People should teach people to say No.

0 poor panther,
Oh your poor black animal,
At large for a few moments in a school for young children in Paris,
Now in your cage again,
How your great eyes bulge with bewilderment,
There is something there that accuses us,
In your angry and innocent eyes,
Something that says:
I am too valuable to be kept in a cage.

Oh these illegitimate babies!
Oh girls, girls,
Silly little valuable things,
You should have said, No, I am valuable,
And again, It is because I am valuable
I say, No.

Nobody teaches anybody they are valuable nowadays

Girls, you are valuable,
And you, Panther, you are valuable,
But the girls say: I shall be alone
If I say ‘I am valuable’ and other people do not say it of me,
I shall be alone, there is no comfort there.
No, it is not comforting but it is valuable,
And if everybody says it in the end
It will be comforting. And for the panther too,
If everybody says he is valuable
It will be comforting for him.