Smith, Stevie (Margaret Florence Smith), 1902–71, English poet and novelist, b. Hull, Yorkshire. At first unnoticed as a poet, she worked in a London publisher's office until 1953. Steadily gaining respect, Smith won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1969. Her poetry speaks with a fiercely comic voice, underneath which lie serious questions about contemporary life. Her works include the novels Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) and Holiday (1949); her poems include A Good Time Was Had By All (1937), Not Waving But Drowning (1957), and Selected Poems (1962). Posthumous volumes include Collected Poems (1975) and Me Again: Uncollected Writings (1981).

Bibliography

See studies by A. C. Rankin (1985) and S. Sternlicht (1990), and the biography by J. Barbera and W. McBrien (1987).

Smith, Stevie

orig. Florence Margaret Smith

(born Sept. 20, 1902, Hull, Yorkshire, Eng.—died March 7, 1971, London) British poet. She lived most of her life with an aunt in a London suburb and worked many years as a secretary. Her poetry, an unsentimental combination of the ludicrous and the pathetic, expresses an original and visionary personality. In the 1960s her poetry readings became popular, and she made radio broadcasts and recordings. Her Collected Poems (1975) is illustrated with her James Thurber-like sketches; it includes her first book, A Good Time Was Had by All (1937), and Not Waving but Drowning (1957), whose title poem appears in many anthologies.