Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994                   TAG: 9403020062
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JANE GLENN HAAS ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

POET WANTS PEOPLE TO KNOW THERE'S MORE THAN 'WARNING'

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple" has taken on life of its own. It has become world-famous.

But lots of people don't know its title - "Warning" - or its author.

"Warning," Joseph, 61, said, "is a bit of a bore. Except when I read it. Then I realize it is quite a good poem."

But good poetry does not necessarily define the poet, she said.

"This poem is not autobiographical," said Joseph, firmly turning aside any contentions that the work reflects her own midlife fantasies.

So closely is the work associated with Joseph, however, that the award-winning poet said she never thinks of wearing purple.

On a recent damp Sunday in Los Alamitos, Calif., Joseph agreed to read the poem, but only once. The rest of the time, she announced, she would read from her other published works.

Not that she resents her most popular writing:

"I am quite pleased to have given pleasure to people," she said.

But she is not happy with what academics and anthologists have done to "Warning," she said.

"It does annoy me when pretentious people interpret it," Joseph said.

She was 29 when she wrote the poem. Since "Warning" was included in the "Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Verse" (Oxford University Press, 1973), it has become the example of Joseph's work reproduced in most anthologies.

Few people bother to read her other work, she said.

In the forward to "When I am an Old Woman," (Papier-Mache Press, 1992), Joseph writes: "The burden of keeping society going falls on people in the middle. `Warning' has a middle-aged woman, the sort who carries out these responsibilities, indulging in a fantasy of being a different person."

Joseph's latest work is a combination of prose and poetry, "Persephone," (Bloodaxe Books, 1989).

Many of her favorite poems have been reissued in a single volume, "Selected Poems" (Bloodaxe, 1992), now available in the United States.

"I think it would be nice if, having enjoyed `Warning,' people would follow up and read other things," Joseph said. "`Warning' is typical of just one aspect of my writing. I have quite a wide range."