When I am an old woman I Shall Wear Purple

Jenny Joseph tells us that aging is about wearing purple and giving ourselves permission to express ourselves without fear of consequences.

Poet Jenny Joseph wrote this poem in 1961, later including it in her 1974 collection Rose In the Afternoon.  A 1966 BBC poll identified “Warning” as the “most popular post-war poem.”   While written from an undeniably western perspective, I am left wondering if it isn’t in fact a universal experience that as we women age, we gain a kind of self-confidence that permits us to step out of the mold, to truly embrace who we are damn the consequences and in an I-don’t-care-what-others-think kind of way.  I discovered this poem in about 1994 when I was deep into my women’s studies degree and already loving and believing that all women look fabulous in the colour purple.  

Warning
Jenny Joseph

1961 

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

 Photo Credit
Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection 

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