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the Magazine » 95
pink weddings m gazine » 95
After beginning to write poetry at 14
, I wrote
seriously for a number of years until in 1998 I won
the Berkshire Poetry Prize for my poem
Identity Crisis
.
At the time I was working for BBC Birmingham, and
it was when my ‘real’ job began to take up more of
my time that I stopped writing. However, friends and
family never stopped asking me to write poetry for
their milestone events, and gradually I started to get
requests from people I had never met to do the
same.
Following redundancy in November, I decided
that the time felt right to actually try writing
professionally. The name ‘In Dreams’ actually has a
twofold meaning – the first is that I actually get a lot
of lines of verse when I am asleep (which is very
annoying unless I have remembered to take a pen
and notepad to bed with me!) and the second is a
tribute to my mum, who died last year: the Roy
Orbison song of the same name was used at her
funeral celebration and seemed to sum up just what
we as a family wanted to say.
A poem can come to me at any time. I feel like the
boy in
The Sixth Sense
– but instead of seeing dead
people, I hear lines! It can be awkward sometimes; I
have had to excuse myself from company many times
at dinner parties when a poem pops up mid-course,
and I recently had to get out of the shower covered in
suds because a verse came to me and I was worried it
would be rinsed away with the bubbles!
Writing a poem always entails the same
approach: getting to know the details of the
recipient so that the poem is truly personal to them.
This is my favourite part – finding out all the
background information and weaving all the strands
together to produce something the recipient will
hopefully love. It’s a little like making a very unique
cake for someone – all of their personal little details
are the ingredients and my head is the oven!
Other than the traditional events like weddings, I
get asked to write for all sorts of occasions. This year
I have written a ‘congratulations on getting rid of the
bad boyfriend’ poem and, perhaps the most unusual,
a verse to celebrate a toilet warming!
And now, a little verse especially for
Pink
Weddings Magazine
:
Poetry
A good reading is the perfect way to inject a little bit of
personality into your ceremony. Shirley O’Mara tells us how
she became a professional poet for weddings – and how
inspiration can hit in the strangest of places!
It’s an honour, it’s a pleasure,
Of the like that’s rarely seen
To be featured in the pages
Of ‘Pink Weddings’ magazine.
To showcase to the readers
How I mess about with verse
Providing something extra special
That goes gently on the purse.
I can take all of your emotions
When you can’t find words to say
Add a sprinkling of my magic dust
To create a perfect wedding day.
I’ll write a personal poem just for you
(If you want I’ll even speak!)
A keepsake to treasure for all of time
And like the love you share, unique.
www.indreamspoetry.co.uk
Lines of love