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
Hand-waving writer seems to believe that if they, figuratively speaking, simply wave their hands, no one will notice or speak up about the holes in the reasoning. This implication of misleading intent has been reinforced by the pop-culture influence of the "Star Wars" franchise, in which mystically powerful hand-waving is fictionally used for mind control, and some uses of the term in public discourse are explicit "Star Wars" references. Actual hand-waving motions may be used either by a speaker to indicate a desire to avoid going into details, or by critics to indicate that they believe the proponent of an argument