These seem to be the best, or at least best known, of Stevie Smith's poems. "Not Waving" has the kind of chill I've mentioned here in relation to some of Dickinson's work and, more recently, Anne Sexton's."Pretty" has it too, but don't you think she lays it on a little thick? Even so, the poem invites me back to ponder why some parts work so much better than others. And I do like the target of her satire, which I take as our need to find everything pretty. To say it's all part of a spiffy design, one must gloss over some pretty gruesome stuff, don't you think? But not to do that, says Stevie Smith, is not to be human.
At the end, she adds that not being human would be pretty as well. Is that not a death wish that seems every bit as authentic as Sexton or Plath? It was in my head that Smith was also a suicide, but in getting this post up, I learned that she died of a brain tumor.
Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith : Poem Guide : Learning Lab : The Poetry Foundation
TLS Poem of the Week Pretty by Stevie Smith
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