Representations of death in the poetry of Stevie Smith

The English poet, Stevie Smith, is best known for poetry which offers childlike poetic voices and accompanying drawings, traits which resulted in her often being overlooked as a serious twentieth century poet. But what lies beneath Smith’s strange poetic veneer that continue to engage her readers? In this thesis, which comprises an exegesis on Smith and an original creative verse novel, Mokhtari examines how death dominates Smith’s poems on human suffering, gender and sexuality, culture and politics. She argues that Smith offers a kind of Nietzschean solution to the horrors of existence – the drive toward death and the exploration of that drive through art. The death theme of her poems that was deemed so precarious by Smith’s friends and colleagues seemed to allow Smith to embrace her marginality and avoid the despair of poets such as Plath and Sexton. Smith didn’t see her obsession to its awful, fatal conclusion, escaping it through imaginary constructs for her readers rather than at her own hand. In analysing and engaging with Smith’s work and responding to it through her own creative practice, Mokhtari offers new insights into this odd, paradoxical poet, her obsession and her work.