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).
See studies by A. C. Rankin (1985) and S. Sternlicht (1990), and the biography by J. Barbera and W. McBrien (1987).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: English Literature, 20th cent. to the Present: Biographies
