Jenny Joseph

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Jenny Joseph
Photo of Jenny Joseph.jpg
Born(1932-05-07)May 7, 1932
Birmingham
DiedJanuary 8, 2018(2018-01-08) (aged 85)
CitizenshipBritish

Jenny Joseph FRSL (7 May 1932 – 15 April 2018) was an English poet.[1]

Early life and education[]

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

From "Warning" (1961)

Jennifer Ruth Joseph was born in Birmingham to Florence (née Cotton) and Louis Joseph, an antiques dealer. Her father's career led to the family relocating to Buckinghamshire where Jenny attended Badminton school. She won a scholarship to study English literature at St Hilda's College, Oxford (1950).[2]

Career[]

Her poems were first published when she was at university in the early 1950s.[3] She became a journalist and worked for the Bedfordshire Times, the Oxford Mail and Drum Publications (Johannesburg, South Africa).

Her first book of poems, The Unlooked-for Season, won a Gregory Award in 1960 and she won a Cholmondeley Award 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, and in her Selected Poems (1992).

The poem became well known in America after Liz Carpenter, (formerly the first woman executive assistant to Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Press Secretary to former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson), 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.[4]

"Warning" was identified as the UK's "most popular post-war poem" in a 1996 poll by the BBC.

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 Red Hat Society.[5][6]

Due to its popularity, an illustrated gift edition of "Warning", first published by Souvenir Press Ltd in 1997, has now been reprinted 41 times.[7] "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.[8]

Joseph herself hated the colour purple, which is why she included it in the poem.[1][4]

In 2021 the Bodleian Libraries 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".[9][10]

Personal life[]

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.[11] Her dedication of The Thinking Heart (1978) was “To my children, preventers of literature, life-savers”.[1]

Awards and honours[]

Bibliography[]

  • Unlooked-for Season (1960 – winner of a Gregory Award)
  • Rose in the Afternoon (1974 – winner of a Cholmondeley Award)
  • 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)

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Alan Brownjohn (19 January 2018). "Jenny Joseph obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  2. ^ "Jenny Joseph - poetryarchive.org". Archived from the original on 30 July 2013. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  3. ^ Couzyn, Jeni. Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe. 1985 p166
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Joseph, Jenny (1 November 1999). "Jenny Joseph on the popularity of her poem "Warning"". The Lancet. 354: SIII30–SIII32. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(99)90272-6. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 10560651.
  5. ^ Redhatsociety.com Archived 2012-07-17 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Solomon, Mary Jane (22 October 2004). "Crimson Tide Washington Post".
  7. ^ "Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple". Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  8. ^ "Warning by Jenny Joseph". Scottish Poetry Library. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
  9. ^ "Bodleian Libraries reach the milestone of 1 millionth image online for public access". artdaily.com. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
  10. ^ Digital Bodleian–One Million Images, retrieved 21 August 2021
  11. ^ Jenny Joseph reads her poem 'Warning', retrieved 21 August 2021
  12. ^ "Royal Society of Literature All Fellows". Royal Society of Literature. Archived from the original on 5 March 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2010.

External links[]

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