MySpace a place for friends

I've had about 60 poems published. One came 4th in Forward Press's 'Top Poets of 2005' & earned me my first money from writing poetry. I self-published my first book of poems last year:

...& I am currently working on my second book 'Martyr Doll & Other Poems.'

An incredibly talented singer/songwriter called Bazza turned 15 of my poems into songs last year, resulting in the CD called 'The Morney Set.'. Please see Bazza's MySpace page for more details.

Later this year I will be recording a CD of my poems with Wes McGhee, singer/songwriter/musician extraordinaire.

Poetry is the biggest part of my life and has saved my life more than once...

Some are published online at the PostPoems site, here: www.postpoems.com/members/opheliablue, 17 more here at the we-love-poems site, more here on poemhunter.com and most recently, two here at nocureforthat.com

The published ones that mean more to me than any other publication could are these three on The National Association for People Abused in Childhood website.

I'm 40 years young. Born in Scotland, grew up in London. Still live in London, with a few knitted plants and 2 feather boas (one hot pink, one purple). I do have other things too, like plates and a bed, etc.

I work from home just now - writing and selling on Amazon.

One of my other personalities, Opheliablue, has had a LiveJournal for nine years. If you have one too, feel free to add me/her so that we can bore you in two different places. If you're really unlucky, we might even add you back.

Check out my mate Wes McGhee's website - he is one of *the* best singer/songwriter/musicians there are! Wes's CDs are available at his website, including his most recent one, the highly acclaimed 'Blue Blue Night.'

I can be nice, but I can also be a complete bitch. I'm not a very sociable person - apart from online. I'm Emily Dickinson with a laptop. I love my laptop so much that I had it surgically attached to me.

Main interest: Sylvia Plath. Some might call it my obsession - *I* call it my area of interest and research. I regularly posted on the Sylvia Plath Forum before it was closed due to the untimely death of Elaine Connell. I was asked to speak about Sylvia at a Plath/Hughes evening in Yorkshire this year - totally unexpected! Couldn't go, though.

I don't believe in there being any rigid 'rules' when writing poetry. I think part of the beauty of it is that it can be whatever you want it to be. I like to experiment with punctuation, line breaks, rhymes (mostly internal ones) and styles. I don't like it when people criticise what they see as 'unconventional' poetry and I don't like it when people think they know how a poem 'should' be written and insist on telling other people where they're going wrong.

I believe that a poem means whatever it means to the person reading it, whether it is what I meant by it or not.

I fully intend to be the first female Poet Laureate, (Carol Ann Duffy beat me to it! And very well deserved!!)