Not Waving but Drowning [Nobody heard him, the dead man, Butstillhe ay moaning: wes mach further out thanyou thought ‘And not waving but drowning Poor chap, he always loved king Andnowhe's dead Temust have been to cold or mis hear ave way, “They said. (0b, no nono it was ton ead aay (Stl the dead one lay moaring) Twas much too fr outall ny ie ‘ud not waving but downing. ‘Sv Smt Ye bt rm Ct Fame of Si Sth Cap 1572S Sh Rapin wh pen Cte reine tig Corton ‘Src: Soe Foo nr Pubing Copa 188) Pete sper pon dot pt af coche oa an ee ‘Sete const ‘Sst steatepsttionn epmn yHi a alphre t on th a (sepa att tick tod pa sh ot ue rte mp indSpeaking of “serious,” “Not Waving but Drowning” is Smith's most famous poem. Ths twelve-ine ‘punch tothe et sone of heros sober an plainly nihilistic pices. The poem begins after the certral drama has already taken place. We jin srowd that has gathered a he site ofan accidental drowning. Nothing ean be done, so out witness is essentially Frensic—un the dead ‘man's voice floats up from the deep, The fist stanza shi quickly from event reportage tothe interior ‘monologue ofthe drowned man trying, even i death o convey to the lving his lifetime of desperation sa grim premise: Life fsa series of opportunities t be misunderstood ‘Nobody heard him, the dead nan, ‘But sll ne tay moaning: ‘Tas much further out than you thought ‘Ad not waving but drowning e's dead from the very begining, but he continues fo moan. His witnesses have filed him, s0 now we will take ther place. The man's words aten't set off with tales or quotation marks, which subtly reinforces his place asthe primary consciousness ofthe poem. A passa hythm, an off-shyme {oaningdroning), lends an sie oF jolt othe harrowing setup isa hallmark of the macabre, Bt in the next tana, the perspective shifts outward agin and the hil realy sts in Poor chap, be aways loved larking And now he’s dead inst have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They sud ‘They new him. And they knew him long enough to know his tendeney toward “leking.” That's their hal assed eulogy. (Who want to imagine the six-wordsurnmation of his own character? Is almost ‘worse than imagining death ite) And “poor chap"—oof. We're nt allowed tobe haunted by the dead man's testimony for oolong before this glib epithet snaps us back tothe social occasion. Tha hid line tumbles out fast in monosylabes, lke the murmuring ofa crowd. Prancing around the edges of ominess, the irony i Pure Stevie: dey were to cod fr him. His heart broke under the stain of being misunderstood for so long, he wants to tellus. And so he does; that he dead man gts the las word i the Poem’s only consolation: ‘Oh, nono no, it was too col always (Stil the dead one lay moaning) Twas much foo far out all my ite ‘And not waving but downing Language fled him, Salutations filed him, We are al dd birds alin danger of having our gestures, Ibis, and roles mistead, misaken for our substance. At work, whose colar dows't cafe? [gues 'd argue that it's prssiness on ovr part when we sum up “minor” poe ike Smith s mannered, precious, oF ‘quirky—not tha those terms cen" useful. There's please in being held at arms length, in being dared 1 embrace—and to dismiss a poets mannerisms. "The himan creature is alone in his earapace,” Smith ‘wrote. "Poetry isa strong way out. The passage that [Poet] blasts soften in splinters, covered with ‘Blood; but she ean come oat sly.”