THERE'S a girl works down the chip shop thinks she's Percy Bysshe Shelley. Well, perhaps not that old poet, but Stella Loizou, who batters the cod and stirs the fryer at Ambleside Chippy in Worcester, doesn't mind at all a comparison with Lily Allen, current fave rave of the popular music scene.

Lily writes a decent lyric and so does Stella, they're both dark haired and about the same age and the connection has been made by a PR firm with an eye for a catchy line.

Both also draw on life's experiences in their work, the big difference being that Lily writes songs and Stella writes poems. Her first book Reflections of a Rhymester has just been published and watch it go.

The business side of a chip shop counter is not known for being chocabloc with poets and if you asked for a rhyming couplet with your salt and vinegar I hesitate to think what might follow, so 24-years-old Stella is one of a pretty rare breed.

The reason she works at the chippy is that her Greek Cypriot uncle Tony Porphiriou owns it and she's been helping him out for the past year.

"I've always liked to write, right from when I was a child," said Stella. "Even when I was about seven or eight, I was the one the family asked if they wanted a few lines for a greetings card or something like that. It just came naturally."

She was born and brought up in Wolverhampton, the only daughter in a traditional Greek Cypriot family, which ran along lines rather more rigid than those of her English schoolfriends.

The culture clash was emphasised by her free spirit and love of Rn'B music.

"If you asked anyone about me at high school, they'd say I was the one who was always going around singing," she laughed.

When Stella enrolled on a performing arts course at Stafford College, the difference between home and away became even more marked.

"I was moving between two different worlds all the time, where values, expectations and lifestyle were quite different. I found it very difficult to be honest," she said.

"In Greek society the rules are set by the family. It is a very close-knit unit and you are expected to be part of it. I found it constricting and I felt like telling my family: I can't do what you are bringing me up to do'."

The light at the end of this frustrating teenage tunnel came from a very unexpected source - her Greek grandmother.

"One day I sat down with her and just opened up. I said things I'd never said to anyone else before. It all came pouring out, all my frustrations and fears for the future.

"She was brilliant. She told me to do what I had to do. To be my own person. She could see the problems I was facing and she understood. That had never happened to me before.

"I was heartbroken when she died in 2005. It was so unexpected. She went into hospital for what we thought was a straightforward knee operation, but there were complications and she never came out."

Stella wrote a poem that she read out at her grandmother's funeral.

"I thought it was the best I could do, it was the only thing I had left to give her. I couldn't believe the response it got. I was amazed. People were in tears."

This was the spark that lit Stella Loizou's poetry career.

"I began writing as much as I could. I found it a great release and it enabled me to write down my inner thoughts and deepest secrets without being judged and worrying about the fallout. I try to write every day, often late at night after I've finished in the fish bar.

"I hope my book will appeal to a wide audience because it's real, it's not sugar-coated and it speaks the truth. People aren't always brave enough to say how they feel, so in some of the book, I am speaking for others. For people who I feel need to open up and be honest to themselves, as well as to others.

"For the people in the world who are struggling or have struggled at some point in their lives. For the highs and the lows. The sex that did it and the sex that really didn't.

"Everyone can relate to something I have written, because it's really just all about life. This is my adventure, my survival."

The first publisher that saw her poems jumped on board.

Stella takes the likeness to Lily Allen with a pinch of salt.

"It's flattering," she said. "I really admire her. She seems a bit crazy, like me."

Which was exactly what they said about Percy Bysshe back in 1820.

Reflections of a Rhymester by Stella Loizou is published by Author House at £12.99 in bookshops or £9.99 online.

IRONIC by Stella LoizouBeep, beep, beep the alarm goes off it's six forty-five, I don't want to move but got to have a shower to make me feel alive.

As I get myself ready I look outside and the traffic is queueing back again, They say women can't drive but when I do this journey the trouble I have is with men.

I walk downstairs my hair all neat ready to face the pain, What a surprise as I step outside the sun returns to rain.

Already my blood is boiling as now my hair is soaking wet, I feel the road rage coming on and the car has not started yet.