"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 work, the most famous of Smith's poems, describes a man whose distressed thrashing in the sea causes onlookers to believe that he is waving to them. 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.
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Famous quotes containing the words waving and/or drowning:
“But he her fears to cease
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His ready harbinger,
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