Stevie Smith

In 1957 Stevie Smith published a poetry collection called Not Waving But Drowning - and its title poem gave us a phrase which has entered the language. Its success has overshadowed her wider work as the author of more than half a dozen collections of poetry and three novels, mostly written while she worked as a secretary. Her poems, printed with her pen and ink sketches, can seem simple and comical, but often beneath the surface lurk themes of melancholy, loneliness, love and death.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Jeremy Noel-Tod 2 episodes
  Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia
• Noreen Masud No other episodes
  Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature at the University of Bristol
• Will May No other episodes
  Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of Southampton

Reading list

• A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry
  Jane Dowson and Alice Entwistle (Cambridge University Press, 2005) Google Books →
• Rhythms of Feeling in Edward Lear, T.S. Eliot and Stevie Smith
  Jasmine Jagger (Oxford University Press, 2022) Google Books →
• British Women's Writing, 1930 to 1960: Between the Waves
  Sue Kennedy and Jane Thomson (eds.) (Liverpool University Press, 2023) Google Books →
• Stevie Smith and the Aphorism: Hard Language
  Noreen Masud (Oxford University Press, 2022) Google Books →
• Stevie Smith and Authorship
  Will May (Oxford University Press, 2010) Google Books →
• Stevie Smith: A Selection
  Stevie Smith (ed. Hermione Lee) (Faber and Faber, 2019) Google Books →
• The Collected Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith
  Stevie Smith (ed. Will May) (Faber and Faber, 2015) Google Books →
• The Spoken Word
  Stevie Smith (British Library CD, 2009) Google Books →
• Me Again: The Uncollected Writings of Stevie Smith
  Stevie Smith (ed. Jack Barbera and William McBrien) (Virago, 1983) Google Books →
• Novel on Yellow Paper
  Stevie Smith (Virago, 1936) Google Books →
• Over the Frontier
  Stevie Smith (Virago, 1938) Google Books →
• The Holiday
  Stevie Smith (Virago, 1949) Google Books →
• Stevie Smith: A Biography
  Frances Spalding (Sutton, 2002) Google Books →
• Stevie Smith: A Critical Introduction
  Frances Spalding (Faber and Faber, 1988)
• In Search of Stevie Smith
  Sanford Sternlicht (ed.) (Syracuse University Press, 1991) Google Books →

Related episodes

• Anna Akhmatova
  
  18 Jan, 2018 890 Other literatures
• Dylan Thomas
  
  16 Jun, 2022 820 English and Old English literatures
• Emily Dickinson
  
  11 May, 2017 810 American literature in English
• Thomas Hardy’s Poetry
  
  13 Jan, 2022 820 English and Old English literatures
• Christina Rossetti
  
  1 Dec, 2011 820 English and Old English literatures
• The Later Romantics
  
  15 Apr, 2004 820 English and Old English literatures
• Shakespeare’s Sonnets
  
  2 Jun, 2022 820 English and Old English literatures
• Gerard Manley Hopkins
  
  21 Mar, 2019 820 English and Old English literatures
• Yeats and Mysticism
  
  31 Jan, 2002 820 English and Old English literatures
• Wilfred Owen
  
  27 Oct, 2022 820 English and Old English literatures

---

Programme ID: m001j45h

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001j45h

Auto-category: 821 (English poetry)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In 1957, Stevie Smith published a poetry collection called Not Waving But Drowning and its title poem gave us a phrase which has entered the language.