Judith Shaw
Creative
Judith is a poet and artist living in St Leonards-on-Sea
About Judith
Judith Shaw is a poet and artist. She has lived in St Leonards-on-Sea since 2004 when she returned from a year living and working in Iceland. She has a practice as a psychotherapist and educational specialist supporting with people with issues around neurodiversity.
Judith’s poetry has been published in magazines including The Frogmore Papers, Ink Sweat and Tears, Black Iris and Magma. She was shortlisted for the prestigious Gingko Prize AONB Best Poem of Landscape, 2021, and won the Hasting Book Festival Sussex Prize for Poetry, 2023. One of her poems is in Ten Poems about Getting Older by Candlestick Press and her work appears in the 2025 Live Canon anthology. She graduated with distinction from the Masters in Writing Poetry at the Poetry School/Newcastle University in 2023.
She is currently Poet-in-Residence for the Cuckmere Pilgrim Path, see below. The residency runs from September 2025 to August 2026 and includes poetry writing and appreciation workshops based at churches on the Cuckmere Pilgrim Path: Berwick, Alciston and Wilmington. These are free and open to beginners and more experienced writers. Please contact Judith for further details.
Judith can be contacted at judith@judithshaw.info or follow her on Instagram: @juditheshaw or facebook: Judith Shaw.
The Land Called Me Back
Poems from the Cuckmere Pilgrim Path
The poems in Judith's debut collection are intensely personal responses to the Cuckmere Pilgrim Path and vary greatly in style, focus and intent in an attempt to be true to her experiences. Caroline Bird describes them as:
"Searching, hard-won poems where worlds co-exist, where the line between the past and the present is as faint as a breeze, and sometimes we must follow the path backwards in order to find ourselves."
The Cuckmere Pilgrim Path
My residency as poet in residence for the Cuckmere Pilgrim Path is now complete. If you would like more information go to Cuckmere Pilgrim Path.