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A haunting poem about a man who drowns and no one notices or helps him. The poem explores the themes of loneliness, alienation, and the limits of human empathy.
- Stevie Smith
Speaking of “serious,” “Not Waving but Drowning” is Smith’s...
- Not Waving But Drowning
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive...
- Stevie Smith
A haunting poem about a drowning man who is mistaken for waving by the shore. The poem explores the themes of loneliness, alienation and the human condition through the use of repetition and contrast.
Learn about the famous poem by Stevie Smith that depicts a drowning man misunderstood by onlookers. Explore the themes, poetic devices, vocabulary, and context of "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 distant movements in the water had been mistaken for waving.
- Stevie Smith
- 1957
- Stanza One
- Stanza Two
- Stanza Three
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The speaker begins this piece with a line that is meant to hook a reader and convince them to continue on through the short stanzas. Smith writes, “Nobody heard him, the dead man.” This is a phrase that, when read literally, seems obvious. Of course, a reader might think, one is unable to hear a dead person. But in the case of this poem, there are ...
The second stanza continues the narrative of the woman in the sea and the man who has already died and washed up on the beach. This stanza is told from the perspectiveof the onlookers but relayed from the speaker’s perspective. She is able to hear their words and relays them back in a way that shows an underlying apathy and distaste for the dead. T...
In the final four lines of the poem, the speaker’s emotions begin to come through. She is reenacting what she believes the dead man must have been thinking as he died, and in turn, what she is thinking now. The speaker is fretting over the situation that she is in, and wishing that somehow she had managed to find a way to make those around her unde...
A poem that compares the speaker's drowning in the ocean with the death of a man on the beach, and criticizes the apathy and neglect of the onlookers. The poem uses rhyme, repetition, and irony to convey the speaker's emotions and the contrast between the dead man's story and the speaker's situation.
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
A poem about a man who drowns because people mistake his cries for help as friendly waves. The poem explores the themes of misunderstanding, loneliness, and human suffering with a light and dark tone.
