Selected Poems draws on Jenny Joseph's first four collections of poetry, The Unlooked-for Season (1960), Rose in the Afternoon (1974), The Thinking Heart (1978) and Beyond Descartes (1983). The poems explore the duality of existence, a track that runs through all her work, whether for children or adults, in poetry or prose. Jenny Joseph's Selected Poems includes 'Warning', her much celebrated monologue in which a young woman talks of her fantasies of old age, voted Britain's favourite modern poem in a BBC poll in 2006.

"Jenny Joseph writes poems full of mist and reason, poems strange in what they say but plain in the way they say it, poems rooted in an English tradition of passionate but quiet exactness…careful craftsmanship, an honest exploration of the human heart, and statement after statement that nags at the memory." - The Times

"She mixes mystery and plain statement in a wholly original way… Those who find modern poetry too thin to be nourishing should try Miss Joseph’s specially enriched dishes… Clear observation, bold aphorisms and sharp unhappiness are woven together in her poems. The end product feels like joy." - Observer