Joseph, Jenny – The Bell Bookshop

Led by the nose

Emma — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Jenny Joseph was no ordinary poet – and Led by the Nose is no ordinary memoir. Shaped around the smells of the English countryside, it is full of the wilful personality and the sly humour that characterised the purple-clad old woman in her iconic poem ‘Warning’. Joseph’s eccentricities permeate each chapter as she flows through the gardening year with its chores and blossoms, frequently leading the reader off the garden path to stop, smell the roses, and ignore the world for a while. Full of the sensual awareness of Jenny Joseph’s poetry, Led by the Nose is a singular memoir: a work of delicious diversion and literary flair, horticultural anxieties and countercultural tendencies, providing a glimpse – or sniff – of the landscape of this treasured poet’s life.

Warning

Emma — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

‘Utterly charming and uplifting’ The Good Book GuideVoted Britain’s favourite poem, ‘Warning’, written in 1961, is known and loved the world over for its message of old age as a time for indulgence and fun.In the poem’s respectable middle-aged woman, as she imagines herself in old age as a cheeky rebel with outrageous clothes and dotty behaviour, poet Jenny Joseph has created a character whose thoughts have been quoted at conferences and funerals, used to cheer up sick friends and remembered with pleasure by children and adults alike around the world.Here, ‘Warning’ appears as a beautiful updated edition with new illustrations; the perfect gift for a friend or relative who wants to grow older free from expectations, with a joyful and rebellious spirit.