Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" and Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" are similar in that both poems' characters have lived their lives with regret and sorrow. Neither of their lives were lived to the fullest and as death approaches, the question of, "what could have been?" remains forever unanswered. Upon first reading, Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning," the image of a man, out in the middle of the ocean, may first come to mind. In desperation he is waving for help because he has swam out too far and is unable t ....