Poem of the Week: 'Not Waving But Drowning'

'Not Waving But Drowning' by Stevie Smith tells the short, dark, humorous story of a man whose thrashing - whilst drowning in the sea - is mistaken for waving by people on the shore. It is also clear that this is a metaphor for any situation in which a cry for help is misinterpreted or ignored by friends and family: people only see what they WANT to see.

For a hypertext annotated version of the poem (if you can bear the website's background!), click here.
Listen to the poet reading the poem at the Edinburgh Festival in 1965 here.
Click here for a biography of Florence Margaret 'Stevie' Smith.
And for a slightly happier poem by Smith, click here.

Not Waving But Drowning
by Stevie Smith

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.