Jenny Joseph (7 May 1932 – 8 January 2018) was an English poet, best known for the poem "Warning".

Early life and education

Jenny Joseph was born on 7 May 1932 in South Hill, Carpenter Road,

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies immediately south-west of Birmingham city centre, and was historically in Warwickshire. The Ward (electoral subdivision), wards of Edgbaston and Nort ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, 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 Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

early during the Second World War. She later credited this experience with her fascination with the changing light. She attended Badminton School in

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

. She won a scholarship to study English literature at

St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College (full name = Principal and Council of St. Hilda's College, Oxford) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon saint Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a ...

(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 language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, South Africa). 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 bee ...

in 1974 for her second collection, ''Rose in the Afternoon'', published by J.M. Dent, London.

"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 Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of John F. Ken ...

and Press Secretary to former First Lady

Lady Bird Johnson Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson (; 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 had previously been Second Lady of the United States from 1961 to 196 ...

), wrote an article for the ''

Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...

'' 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 Lucas. "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 The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

. 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" were the inspiration for the Red Hat Society. Due to its popularity, an illustrated gift edition of "Warning", first published by

Souvenir Press Ernest Hecht (21 September 1929 – 13 February 2018)Katherine Cowdrey"'Wise and witty' Ernest Hecht dies, aged 88" ''The Bookseller'', 13 February 2018. was a British publisher, producer, and philanthropist. In 1951, he founded Souvenir Press L ...

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 2021, the

Bodleian Libraries The Bodleian Libraries are a collection of 28 libraries that serve the University of Oxford in England, including the Bodleian Library itself, as well as many other (but not all) central and faculty libraries. As of the 2021–2022 report year, ...

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".

Personal life

In 1961, Joseph married Charles Anthony (Tony) Coles. The couple had three children – Martin, Nel and Bec – and ran the Greyhound, a west London pub. She moved to the Cotswold village of Minchinhampton near Stroud in her 50's where she continued writing poetry, as well as gardening and tending to her allotment. In her later years due to ill health she moved to Swansea to be nearer some of her family and is buried in the woodland burial grounds of Oystermouth cemetery.

Awards and honours

* 1960: Gregory Award for ''Unlooked-for Season'' * 1974:

for ''Rose in the Afternoon'' * 1986:

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Un ...

for her fiction ''Persephone'' * 1995: Travelling scholarship by the

Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to protect the rights and further the interests of authors. Membership of the society is open to "anyon ...

. * 1999: Fellowship of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

in 1999.

Bibliography

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

) *''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)

Commemoration

The ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

'' published an entry for Jenny Joseph in March 2022.

References

External links

Poetry Archive profile and poems written and audio

Jenny Joseph
Bloodaxe profile

Interview by BBC
25 February 2004. {{DEFAULTSORT:Joseph, Jenny 1932 births 2018 deaths 20th-century English poets 20th-century English women writers 21st-century English poets 21st-century English women writers Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford Jewish English writers English women poets Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Jewish poets People from Edgbaston Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands