Musician. One of the more outrageously punk of her generation's punk rockers, she shall be remembered as the founder, lead vocalist, and songwriter of the late 1970s group X-Ray Spex. Born Marianne Joan Elliot-Said she was raised in Brixton by her single mother. A self-described 'barefoot hippie' she ran away at 15 and spent the next few years drifting from one rock festival to another. A Sex Pistols concert attended on her 18th. birthday inspired her to become a singer and under the name "Mari Eliott" she soon released the single "Silly Billy". After her record flopped she set about recruiting a group of four others; X-Ray Spex set their style with 1977's then controversial but now classic "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" The band made a number of well-received appearances and saw success with their 1978 album "Germ Free Adolescents" but Poly soon quit when she saw visions while onstage and had the first of her several psychiatric hospitalizations. In 1980 she published "Translucence", then joined a Hare Krishna sect in 1983, and followed in 1986 with the Eastern-themed "Gods and Goddesses". Her mental problems returned in the early 1990s when she was diagnosed as bipolar but she continued singing about consumerism, conformity and alienation, becoming an influence on the 'Riot Grrrl' movement. In 1991 she rejoined X-Ray Spex when the group reunited; her performing career was interrupted when she was struck by a fire engine in 1995 but she was to release the 2004 "Flower Aeroplane" and was to sing with X-Ray Spex on several occasions. Her final recording, "Generation Indigo", came out in early 2011; Poly died after a short battle with breast cancer which was metastatic at the time of diagnosis.