Not Waving but Drowning 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 distressed thrashing 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
White Aster (poem) White Aster (poem) The epic tells the story of White Aster, a maiden who was so named because she was found in a clump of white asters. She goes on a journey in search of her father, who has gone hunting and whose whereabouts are unclear. She is captured by robbers, but is rescued by her older brother, who had left home and became a priest. Subsequently, she attempts suicide by drowning as a result of a conflict that had her torn between her sense of obligation to the old man who had treated her so kindly and the last