! ! Stevie Smith Reading Her Poems Poem by Michael Shepherd

She was not yet really 'known' -
but asked to read by this small group
of older Jewish refugees and eager youngsters,
talent destined for a fame,
at the tiny Gaberbocchus Press

which did not affect at all
the self-contained aloneness
that walked up the aisle from door to barely stage

and in a clear dry voice neither apology nor hope
read her poems that gave a meaning
to the new word 'throwaway' - they were her,
she read them, threw the invisible sheets away,
and if you caught them as you laughed
which was easier than crying tears,
so be it.

Her voice at the poems' end
was herself: as if, not waving, no, but drowning, neatly,
with a certain acceptance,
in the incomprehensibility of life; she read
as if when the poem ended
you might quickly but quietly rise from your seat
and leave, not rudely but because
there was nothing more to say