New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith

Rating:
Summary: A Courageous Eccentric
Review: Morbid, yet never cynical, wryly funny, thought- and laughter- provoking . . . Ideal for grown-ups who can still see with the eyes of children.

Rating:
Summary: Poetry and Pictures Style Oh My
Review: Stevie Smith combines poetry and pictures in a remarkably unique style. The reader is wonderfully challenged by the supposed inconsistencies of the two modes. However with a closer examination the complexity of the work diffuses into simple genius. Smith's collection of poetry offers a wide range of topics including such issues as childhood, politics, animals, marriage and so forth. I guarantee that once a reader gets into the rhythm of her poetry, they will become avid Stevie Smith readers. If you love James Thurber than you will equally love Stevie Smith.

Rating:
Summary: An American Classic
Review: This is a good selection of Stevie Smith's poetry - and it is good that Smith should have such a volume in print in the States. Americans - with a tradition ranging from Whitman to the beat poets - should find Smith easier to accept than the English who have always maintained some reserve about this most original of writers. Obviously any Selected Poems is going to omit favourites - this volume really should have included 'The Magic Morning': read it in the Collected Poems - but 'The Galloping Cat' is here as well as 'Away Melancholy' and many other masterpieces. On the other hand, unless one really is a grade A Smith enthusiast, this Selected Poems is more comfortable than the larger Collected Poems. Except in subtle ways her poetic voice does not evolve (what other poet sprang into the world so fully formed? Remember: as Wilde said, 'Only mediocrities develop'): this can make her volumes monotonous and apparently limited. This selection is certainly enough on its own to convince the discerning reader that Smith was a talent of uncompromising genius (what we English like to call 'eccentric').