Heather Shakespeare

Negative Space

Pointing to the edges of the potted palm
she exhorted us in that velvet Aberdeen accent
to look between, around, anywhere but at the leaves
and in a rare moment of compliance we all, blue-overalled,
took up our brushes and half closed our eyes
seeing for the first time how what is not or has not been
becomes something in the defining of what is
and that without the lamenting and the lost things
there would be nothing there to paint.

Heather Shakespeare has been writing poetry for several years, though initially only sporadically. Having studied literature at university and taught English to adults for 17 years, she eventually began to write and share her own words more widely. She cut her open mic teeth at The Poetry Café in Covent Garden and now belongs to Mole Valley Poets, a stanza of The Poetry Society. Heather works on a freelance basis facilitating writing for wellbeing workshops, which focus on the writing process and provide a space for people from all walks of life to discover the joy and therapeutic potential of creative writing.