Blue Plaque For Poet Stevie Smith
Florence Margaret Smith (1902 – 1971), otherwise known as Stevie, one of the 20th century’s most distinctive and original poets, was commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque on 16 September at 1 Avondale Road, Palmers Green, N13, London, where she lived for much of her life, from 1906 to 1971. It was while she lived at this address, for a remarkable 65 years, that she produced a consistently personal and innovative body of work that enjoyed much public popularity. The Blue Plaque will be unveiled by the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion.
Stevie was born in Hull in 1902, but moved to Palmers Green with her mother, Ethel, and Aunt Madge, when she was four. Stevie saw very little of her father, Charles Smith, and regarded him with distain. When Stevie was five, she developed turberculous peritonitis and was sent to a sanatorium where she remained on and off for several years. Death began to fascinate and horrify the youngster in equal measure, and the subject reoccurs in much of her poetry. Stevie was devastated by her mother’s death when she was 16. However, her Aunt Madge, who Stevie called “the lion of Hull”, a sensible no-nonsense woman who found her niece’s early poetry “unnecessary”, took care of the teenager.
After leaving school at 16, Stevie began work as a personal secretary at a publishing company, a job that she retained for over 30 years. Although she found it rather tedious, it allowed her time to write. Her first novel, the autobiographical, “Notes on Yellow Paper” (1936), was typed on the firm’s copying paper. Stevie enjoyed immediate success with it, and similar, very personal works followed, including “Over the Frontier” (1936), and “The Holiday” (1949). She quickly acquired a group of literary friends, but remained living with her aunt in Palmers Green.
It was, however, her poetry that propelled Stevie to the height of her fame, and for which she is best remembered. Her first book of poems, “A Good Time was had by All” was published in 1937, followed by “Tender Only to One” (1938), “Mother, What is Man?” (1942), and “Harold’s Leap” (1950). Despite a period of mental instability in the 1950s, during which she retired from her job, she managed to produce her most creative and memorable work, “Not Waving But Drowning”, in 1957.
By the 1960’s, Stevie was enjoying a renewed interest in her work. She took part in poetry festivals, made recordings and broadcasts of her work, continued to write, and even made her name as an artist. The illustrations that accompanied her poems and novels were often as remarkable as the text itself. In 1962 the first edition of “Selected Poems” was published to great acclaim. In 1968, Stevie’s beloved Aunt Madge died, aged 96, after a long period of disability during which Stevie cared for her much as her aunt had cared for her when she was young. However, Stevie’s own health then began to fail her and, after she was found to be suffering from a brain tumour, she died only three years later, in 1971.
As one of the most distinctive of modern poets, Stevie Smith’s deeply personal work has endured and remains popular to this day. On her death, The Times lauded her talent as “wholly individual, unconventional, and unpredictable”. Her work remains in print and forms part of the school syllabus.
For further press information, please contact Sophie Clarke, English Heritage Corporate Communications, 0207 973 3294.
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