SOURCE: "Delivered for a Time from Silence," in Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1977, pp. 314—30.

Below, Helmling commends the stylistic and thematic diversity of Collected Poems.

Although Stevie Smith's reputation has been growing for years, her readers typically retain the impression of a talent that appeared suddenly and recently, even if their first encounters with her occurred long ago. Her simplicity, her directness, her charm, that wickedly knowing naiveté which, seeming so narrow, nevertheless embraces extremes of delight, melancholy, impatience, and anger: these things have a way of taking the mind by storm. There are other contemporary poets who dazzle at first reading, but only rarely is the dazzlement attended by complete comprehension. Stevie Smith's best things "enchain the mind," as Dr. Johnson would say, immediately and entirely, remaining in the memory as unmovably as verses remembered from childhood. Who could ever forget the man who was not...