A WRITER is celebrating an unusual feat — she has written what she believes to be the longest ever rhyming poem.

Katherine Shaw, aged 37, a mum from Atherton, started writing short poems for her Facebook friends.

And when the response to them was positive she decided to embark on a longer task.

Six months and 100,000 words later, she has completed The Jaw, a horror suspense story about a couple whose romance goes badly wrong.

“Out of curiosity I wondered what the world’s longest poem is,” she said. “Apparently it’s about a million words long, which I knew I could never manage, but there didn’t seem to be any information on the longest rhyming poem.

“I started writing it about six months ago and spent 12 hours a day at it. I think of it as a rhyming novel, it’s very fast paced and twisty.”

Now she is publishing a shortened version — at just 60,000 words — through the website lulu.com.

“I’d love to see it do really well and I’d love to see it be made into a film,” she said. “If it goes well I’d also really like to write a sequel. There’s a big twist at the end that means The Jaw 2 would work well.”

And from never having written so much as a limerick, Katherine now says she is a poetry fanatic.

“Poetry isn’t just words that rhyme — it’s a really powerful form of writing,” she said.

According to the Guinness Book of Records the longest poem in the English language is King Alfred by John Fitchett, which ran to 129,807 lines and took 40 years to write. They confirmed that they have no category for the longest rhyming poem in English.

The Jaw tells the story of a couple, Paul and Betty, who meet on a park bench. Betty’s reputation precedes her, and Paul knows that she is not a woman to be trifled with, but his heart overrules his head and the pair start a passionate relationship.

But Betty turns out to have more secrets than her new man could ever imagine, and unable to deal with her past Paul is sent crazy . . . with devastating consequences.

The Jaw costs £9.99 plus postage and packing, and is available from lulu.com.