When her aunt grew old and infirm, Smith gave up her job to look after her, although she herself was often in ill health. At the same time she managed to lead a lively social life in London and was known for the vividness and range of her conversation.
Smith brought out her first novel, Novel on Yellow Paper (1936), at the suggestion of a publisher who rejected a collection of poems. This was followed by her first
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SUNT LEONES / 2373
volume of poetry, A Good Time Was Had b)1 All (1937), and in due course by eight further poetry collections and two further novels.
Smith's work is utterly original, fitting into no category and showing none of the characteristic influences of the age. Her poetry sometimes seems to be light verse, and it draws on nursery rhyme and often employs simple language, but its humor can shade into dread, its whimsy into metaphysical pondering. She illustrated many of her poems with line drawings (she called them 'doodles') that reinforce the effect of mock-naivete. This stance is akin to the cunning innocence of the fool or the trickster, and can be seen, in part, as a gendered deflection and subversion of masculine cultural norms. Her diction ranges from the matter-of-fact to the archaic, from colloquialism ('Poor chap'), slang ('you ass'), and nonsense ('Our Bog Is Dood') to didacticism ('My point which upon this has been obscured') and foreign phrases ('Sunt Leones'). Her verse moves from free conversational rhythms to traditional verse patterns, on occasion becoming?to ironic effect?almost doggerel. Her tone can be satiric, solemn, or both at once. A poem such as 'Not Waving but Drowning' belies the apparent guilelessness of Smith's art. Like the dying man's ambiguous gesture here, her poetry waves to us, with its songlike lyricism and comedy, and yet also reveals much about 'drowning'?about death, suicide, and other painful human issues. A religious skeptic, Smith said she was always in danger of falling into belief, and her poetry shows her to be fascinated by theological speculation, the language of the Bible, and religious experience.
Sunt Leones1
The lions who ate the Christians on the sands of the arena By indulging native appetites played what has now been seen a Not entirely negligible part In consolidating at the very start 5 The position of the Early Christian Church. Initiatory rites are always bloody An d the lions, it appears From contemporary art, made a study Of dyeing Coliseum sands a ruddy I O Liturgically sacrificial hue .And if the Christians felt a little blue ? Well people being eaten often do. Theirs was the death, and theirs the crown undying,2 A state of things which must be satisfying. 1 5 My point which up to this has been obscured Is that it was the lions who procured By chewing up blood gristle flesh and bone Th e martyrdoms on which the Churc h has grown. I only write this poem because I thought it rather looked 2 0 As if the part the lions played was being overlooked. By lions' jaws great benefits and blessings were begotten An d so our debt to Lionhood must never be forgotten.
1. There be lions (Latin). Christians were attacked 2. I.e., of martyrdom, in heaven. The Christian lit- and eaten by lions in the public games held in the urgy, or system of worship, prescribes certain col- Colosseum during the Roman Empire. ors for certain festivals (line 10).
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237 4 / STEVIE SMITH
Our Bog Is Dood
Our Bog is dood, our Bog is dood, They lisped in accents mild, But when I asked them to explain They grew a little wild.
5 How do you know your Bog is dood My darling little child?
We know because we wish it so That is enough, they cried, And straight within each infant eye
10 Stood up the flame of pride, And if you do not think it so You shall be crucified.
Then tell me, darling little ones, What's dood, suppose Bog is?
is Just what we think, the answer came, Just what we think it is. They bowed their heads. Our Bog is ours And we are wholly his.
But when they raised them up again
20 They had forgotten me Each one upon each other glared In pride and misery For what was dood, and what their Bog They never could agree.
25 Oh sweet it was to leave them then, And sweeter not to see, And sweetest of all to walk alone Beside the encroaching sea, The sea that soon should drown them all,
30 That never yet drowned me.
Not Waving but Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said.
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THOUGHT S ABOU T TH E PERSO N FRO M PORLOC K / 237 5 10Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning. 1957
Thoughts About the Person from Porlock1
Coleridge received the Person from Porlock And ever after called him a curse, Then why did he hurry to let him in? He could have hid in the house.
It was not right of Coleridge in fact it was wrong (But often we all do wrong) As the truth is I think he was already stuck With Kubla Khan.
He was weeping and wailing: I am finished, finished, IO I shall never write another word of it,
1. See Coleridge, 'Kubla Khan,' (p. 446).
