Jenny Joseph (7 May 1932 – 15 April 2018) was an English poet, best known for the poem "Warning".
Early life and education
Jennifer Ruth Joseph was born on 7 May 1932 in South Hill, Carpenter Road,
Edgbaston
Edgbaston () is an affluent suburban area of central Birmingham, England, historically in Warwickshire, and curved around the southwest of the city centre.
In the 19th century, the area was under the control of the Gough-Calthorpe family a ...
,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
to Florence (née Cotton) and Louis Joseph, an antiques dealer. The family were non-observant Jews. Her father's career led to the family relocating to Buckinghamshire, and Joseph was evacuated to Devon early during the Second World War. She later credited this experience with her fascination with the changing light.
She attended Badminton school in Bristol. She won a scholarship to study English literature at
St Hilda's College, Oxford (1950).
Career
Her poems were first published when she was at university in the early 1950s. She became a journalist and worked for the ''Bedfordshire Times'', the ''Oxford Mail'' and
Drum Publications (
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
).
Her first book of poems, ''The Unlooked-for Season'', won a
Gregory Award in 1960 and she won a
Cholmondeley Award
The Cholmondeley Awards () are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has be ...
for her second collection, ''Rose in the Afternoon'', in 1974.
"Warning"
Joseph's best known poem, "Warning", was written in 1961 when she was 28. First published in ''The Listener'' in 1962, "Warning" was later included in her 1974 collection ''Rose In the Afternoon'', in ''
The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse
''The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse'' is a poetry anthology edited by Philip Larkin. It was published in 1973 by Oxford University Press with . Larkin writes in the short preface that the selection is wide rather than deep; and a ...
'', and in her ''Selected Poems'' (1992).
The poem became well known in America after
Liz Carpenter
Mary Elizabeth Sutherland Carpenter (September 1, 1920 – March 20, 2010) was a writer, feminist, reporter, media advisor, speechwriter, political humorist, and public relations expert. As the first woman executive assistant to Vice Presiden ...
, (formerly the first woman executive assistant to Vice President
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
and Press Secretary to former First Lady
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson (''née'' Taylor; December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007) was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. She previously served as Second Lady from 1961 to 1963 whe ...
), wrote an article for the ''Reader's Digest'' in the early 1980s, about enjoying life having recovered from an illness, closing the article with "Warning". The poem was adopted by the greeting-card industry, led by graphic designer and calligrapher Elizabeth Lucas. Joseph ascribed the popularity of the poem "to her business acumen and energy I owe a hospitable following in California and later throughout northern America, more social, as I said, than literary.
"Warning" was identified as the UK's "most popular post-war poem" in a 1996 poll by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
.
The opening lines "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me" was the inspiration for the
.
Due to its popularity, an illustrated gift edition of "Warning", first published by Souvenir Press Ltd in 1997, has now been reprinted 41 times. "Warning" was included in the anthology ''Tools of the Trade: Poems for new doctors'' (Scottish Poetry Library, 2014) and a copy was given to all graduating doctors in Scotland in 2014.
Joseph herself hated the colour purple, which is why she included it in the poem.
in Oxford announced that the one millionth image from their collections to be digitised by the Digital Bodleian project was Joseph's first draft of "Warning".
In 1961 Joseph married Charles Coles. The couple had three children, Martin, Nell and Bec and ran the Greyhound, a west London pub, whilst Joseph continued writing. They eventually divorced and Joseph retired to Gloucestershire. Her dedication of ''The Thinking Heart'' (1978) was “To my children, preventers of literature, life-savers”.
.
* 1999 Fellowship of the
in 1999.
)
*''The Thinking Heart'' (1978)
*''Beyond Descartes'' (1983)
*''Persephone'' (1986 – fiction in verse and prose)
*''Beached Boats'' (1992 – prose)
*''The Inland Sea'' (1992)
*''Selected Poems'' (1992) – which includes ("Warning")
*''Ghosts and Other Company'' (1996)
*''Extended Similes'' (1997 – prose fiction)
*''Warning'' (1997, illustrated gift edition)
* ''All the Things I See'' (2000)
*''Led by the Nose'' (2002)
*''Extreme of Things'' (2006)
*''Nothing Like Love'' (2009)
published an entry for Jenny Joseph in March 2022.