Not Waving but Drowning

For those of you who don't know, "Not Waving but Drowning" is a famous poem by Stevie Smith.  If you're interested, you can view the poem here.  To me, the poem represents not only death, but depression, misery, pain, etc.  The last stanza of the poem says,
 "Oh, 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." ©1972 by Stevie Smith

This stanza really inspired me to create a piece of artwork (alright, if I'm being honest, I'm also doing is as a "nonpaper" instead of a paper for my Brit Lit II class...).  

This is the result: 

The figure is a woman because the sketch that Smith drew alongside the poem was of a girl in the water, so that's what inspired me to paint a woman, standing in water, with the water reaching up to grab her.  Inside the water you'll see a figure bent over with words all around saying, "I hate my life," "Why?" "I don't care," etc.  This deeply depressing image, along with the image on her body and by her head, represent the depression that's inside of her and always attacking her.   It also represents the darker message of the poem.  The area surrounding the woman is bright, colorful, and filled with words and designs.  This is meant to illustrate Smith's playful rhythm and tone.  The background also serves to distract the viewer from the depressing images, illustrating how society likes to forget about the negative and focus more on the positive.  I got some of these ideas from three criticisms about the poem: 

• Not Waving but Drowning

          Poetry for Students

            Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Mary Ruby. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. p214-226. COPYRIGHT 1998 Gale Research,                    COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale

•  Autonomy and Commitment in Twentieth-Century British Literature. Eds. Christine Reynier, Jean-MichelGanteau. Montpellier: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée. 2010. 145-161.

• Anderson, Linda: Gender, feminism and poetry

           The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry. Corcoran, Neil   (ed.)Cambridge; New York173-186