My inclination when I decided to feature Jenny Joseph's work in these pages was to steer away from her most popular and famous poem, "Warning." For, even though she is known today almost exclusively for this one highly popular poem, she is by no means a one-poem poet, and there are many other excellent choices I could have made.

But, in the end, I chose to go with "Warning," and to return to her other worthy poems at a later date. I can't explain exactly why I decided to do this, except to say that it somehow just didn't seem right to introduce Jenny Joseph with any poem other than "Warning."

This poem was written in 1961. Aside from the fact that it is an excellent and appealing poem, it is well known today for two reasons. One of these is the fact that Philip Larkin chose to include it in his controversial and influential 1973 anthology, The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse. The second, and probably more important reason, is that a woman named Elizabeth Lucas was granted exclusive publishing rights to the poem in 1984 and proceeded to introduce a popular "When I Am An Old Woman" product line, which includes greeting cards, prints, tee shirts, sweat shirts, purple tote bags, framed quotations, plaques, magnets, decorative boxed note cards, snack trays and other gift products featuring the poem.

Ms. Joseph's poetry was first published in the 1950s by John Lehmann, whose poem "This Excellent Machine" was featured in these pages two weeks ago. Since that time, she has published numerous books of poetry and prose and won many poetry awards for her work. She was born in Birmingham, England, educated at Oxford University, and currently lives in Gloucestershire.