A POETIC pensioner from Ammanford has had her work selected to be published in a book celebrating women in poetry.

Shirley Prosser, who was born in London and moved to Garnant in 1948, sent her poems to publisher United Press and they agreed to print her work in their poetry book.

Shirley, who left school when she was 15, said: “I sent off 13 poems last year and they all ended up being printed in Women Poets of the Year 2015 and I am delighted to have been chosen to appear in the book.

“I tend to let my imagination flow and I usually write about animals, nature and more often or not Wales.

“I usually wake up in the middle of the night and I am write at 2 o’clock in the morning because that is when I get the most inspiration.”

Shirley, who has written over 200 poems in her lifetime, started writing poetry in school and when she was teenager but she kept on throwing them away because she didn’t think they were any good. She only started taking her writing more series in the 1980s.

The publisher recently sent Shirley 20 copies of the book and she has distributed them amongst her family as well as Ammanford library, where residents will be able to read the poems Our Tenby Outing, A Restless Night, Wait For Me, Our Mountains Rambles and many more. In the book, Shirley dedicates her work to all her friends and family past and present.

It is not only publishers that are seeing Shirley’s potential as the 78-year-old, who now lives in Llandybie, has also had a royal approval for her written work.

Shirley said: “I sent a poem to the Queen for her birthday and she wrote me a letter back saying thank you and how much she enjoyed it.”

Julie Embury, editor of Women Poets of the Year 2015, said: “I think it is a wonderful thing that women’s poetry has come to the fore more and more over the years.

“Most famous poets have been men but now women are taking their place in the annals of poetic inspiration.”