Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith

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 away,

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

            Stevie Smith was born in 1902 in Yorkshire, England. Her mother died when Smith was a teenager so Smith and her sister lived with an aunt; the aunt became an important figure in Smith’s life. Smith attended North London Collegiate School for Girls and went on to be a secretary. Smith started writing poetry in her twenties and has had eleven published poems; many of her poems have the evident topic of death. She drew some of the influence for her poems from fairytales and theology; he poems take a slightly nursery rhyme structure to them in their repetition and flow. Smith died in 1971 of a brain tumor.

            According to Urban Dictionary, the definition of “larking” has to deal with a person wandering or simply observing his or her surroundings. I looked up this word because now that I know its meaning, it’s easy to maybe see why the man has drowned because he liked to wander and it got him into danger.

            The first stanza is retrospective of the speaker watching his friend drowning and being unable to do anything about it. The second stanza, to me, feels as though it lacks sympathy because the speaker just claims that the friend is dead, with no emotion, almost like it never happened. The last stanza is introspective because it mentions “being too far out all my life” and this seems to me to be a reflection on the speaker’s lack of connection in his or her own life. This then led me to think that the speaker may not be just a person/friend watching someone drown, but in fact, watching him drown. The speaker seems to have lost touch with his life and can’t find a way to get reconnected and instead has given up hope and watched himself struggle. This poem reminds me that even though we all will feel like we are losing touch at one point or another in our lives, we have two options – drown or take the risk and save ourselves.