Jenny Joseph was an English author of poetry and prose, first published in the 1950s by John Lehmann. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and her awards included a Gregory Award, a Cholmondeley Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship. 'Warning' was twice voted Britain's favourite modern poem in BBC polls in 1996 and 2006. Jenny Joseph died in 2018, aged 85.
Lydia Coventry is an illustrator, designer and maker who works across various mediums from pen and ink drawings and graphic illustration to jewellery and paper craft. She studied Illustration at the University of Plymouth and lives in London. Follow her on Instagram @lydiacoventry.
Jenny Joseph was born in 1932 in Birmingham, England. She won a scholarship to read English literature at St Hilda's College, Oxford, coming top of her year. She published her first collection of poetry,
The Unlooked-for Season, in 1960, which went on to win the Eric Gregory Award. Joseph's most famous poem, 'Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
', first appeared in her 1974 collection
Rose in the Afternoon. It has remained popular ever since and was voted Britain's favourite modern poem in a 2006 BBC poll. In 1995 Joseph won the Forward Prize for her poem 'In Honour of Love' and her experimental fiction work
Persephone won the 1986 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. Jenny Joseph died in 2018, aged 85.
