The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
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).
