Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed

Not Waving But Drowning

"Not Waving but Drowning" is a poem by the British poet Stevie Smith. It was published in 1957, as part of a collection of the same title. The most famous of Smith's poems, it gives an account of a drowned man, whose distant movements in the water had been mistaken for waving. The poem was accompanied by one of Smith's drawings, as was common in her work. The poem's personal significance has been the topic of several pieces of literary criticism, because Smith was treated for psychological problems. She contemplated suicide at the age of eight, after what she described as a difficult childhood and her struggle with the fact that her father abandoned her. more »