This New Directions Paperbook brings back into print the 1975 Oxford University Press edition of Stevie Smith’s Collected Poems, her complete poetic works edited by her long-time friend James MacGibbon. “On gray days when most modern poetry seems one dull colorless voice speaking through a hundred rival styles, one turns to Stevie Smith and enjoys her unique and cheerfully gruesome voice. She is a charming and original poet,” commented Robert Lowell about the book that introduced Stevie to American readers, her Selected Poems (New Directions, 1964). The Selected won her many enthusiasts, but it was not until the release of Hugh Whitemore’s film Stevie in 1981 that her poetry found a wider audience and sent that little book repeatedly back to press. The title of Miss Smith’s first published collection (London, 1937) was A Good Time Was Had By All, and indeed that is what her poetry, embroidered by her delightful, apposite doodles, provides. It brings us too into the company of wit, irony, and, as Brendan Gill remarked, “images of joy and terror.” A Newsweek reviewer wrote, “Even in the lightest of her verse, the briefest epigram, there is a resonance, the reverberation of a triangle, if not a gong.”

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“A quirky, haunting personality.”
- Philadelphia Inquirer

About the Author

Stevie Smith (1902-1971) was the author of three novels and nine poetry volumes and lived almost her whole life in northern London. She was officially recognized with the Cholmondeley Award for Poetry in 1966 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry in 1969.

Paperback: 594 pages
Publisher: New Directions; Reprint edition (October 17, 1983)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0811208826
ISBN-13: 978-0811208826
Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1.3 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 2 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,387,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2108 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Women Authors
- #4536 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > European

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Anna

Five Stars

June 27, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Wonderful all around!

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Trystero

A great, underappreciated poet

August 25, 2007

Format: Paperback

Despite all the talk about poetry being dead during the twentieth century, it was the most prolific century for poets in modern history. The English language in particular experienced a proliferation of new and original poets. Stevie Smith was, unfortunately, one of those lesser known British poets who never achieved the fame in America she had in Europe. She was not by far the greatest poet of the century; she couldn't best Pound, Eliot, Ginsberg, Berryman, Stevens, etc. However, when one reads her works, one finds a unique intellect struggling with love and death. She reminds one of a homegrown hodge-potch of Ogden Nash and Emily Dickinson. This is thoroughly rewarding reading for anybody, and I think young girls in particular would identify with her poetry. It's the uncomplicated type of verse that SHOULD be taught in schools to help students better understand and appreciate the possibilities of the form.

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