Emma Must
Poet
Emma Must is a poet living in Belfast.
Her first full-length poetry collection, The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday, was published by Valley Press on 8 December 2022, and launched that evening at No Alibis Bookstore, Belfast. The collection reflects on her involvement in the anti-road protests at Twyford Down near Winchester in the early 1990s. (See Hampshire Chronicle, 25 January 2023; Resurgence & Ecologist, Jan/Feb 2023; Honest Ulsterman, February 2023)
Formerly a full-time environmental campaigner, in 2021 Emma completed a PhD in English (Creative Writing) at Queen’s University Belfast, focusing on ecopoetry and ecocriticism.
Her poem ‘Toll’ won the Environmental Defenders Prize in the 2019 Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry and is included in Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency, edited by Kate Simpson (Valley Press, 2021). Emma's debut poetry pamphlet, Notes on the Use of the Austrian Scythe (2015), won the Templar Portfolio Award.
Royalties from each sale of The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday will be donated to Transport Action Network and the A36/A350 Corridor Alliance.
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March 2023
Free workshop, starting & finishing at 2 Royal Avenue, Belfast
Friday 24 March 2023, 11:00 – 13:00
Learn a new way to explore your city!
Join us for a walk round Belfast city centre, followed by a creative writing session to capture what you see, hear and experience in words.
You’ll be guided, step by step, by local poet Emma Must.
No prior experience needed and completely free to take part. Please wear comfortable shoes and bring a notebook and pen.
Open to all over 18, part of Belfast Festival of Learning.
Contact: Niamh Kelly, Creative Programme Team Engagement Officer
Spring 2023
FORAGE
Poetry Jukebox curation
with Maria McManus
and Institute for Global Food Security
at Queen's University Belfast
SUBMISSIONS CLOSED 22 January 2023
Ever since William Blake desired ‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower’, poets have been shedding light on things by looking closely at small natural objects.
This edition of Poetry Jukebox will be curated by poets Emma Must & Maria McManus. They welcome poems (one per poet) that connect with the theme of ‘Forage’: poems about leaves, flowers, berries, stones, moss; poems which pay detailed attention to the natural world around us.
Autumn 2022
Vital Signs
Poems of Illness and Healing
edited by Martin Dyar
published by Poetry Ireland
12 October 2022
Poems by Eavan Boland, Raymond Carver, Imtiaz Dharker, Vona Groarke, Seamus Heaney, Miroslav Holub, Patrick Kavanagh, Paula Meehan, Paul Muldoon, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and many others, including Emma's poem 'Sirens'.
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Spring / Summer 2022
Banshee
Issue #13
Spring/Summer 2022
Includes a new poem from Emma's forthcoming sequence
'The Finds'
Published April 2022
Shared Future News
Winter 2021 / 2022
Under the Radar
Issue 28
January 2022
Includes a new poem 'Bourne'.
What Northern Ireland Means to Me
Shared Future News
Podcast
8 January 2022
Presented by Julia Paul. Photos by Allan Leonard.
The North
Issue 67
January 2022
Includes a new poem 'Scales'.
Trumpet
Issue 10
December 2021
Edited by Mícheál McCann. The issue features poets and poetry in Northern Ireland, 2021. Includes a new poem 'Gongoozling'.
Hold Open the Door
Museum of Literature Ireland
Podcast
December 2021
Poets Bebe Ashley, Emma Must and Sinéad Morrissey in conversation. Presented by Professor Margaret Kelleher of UCD. Hold Open the Door is a commemorative anthology from the Ireland Chair of Poetry and UCD Press, published in 2020.
Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency
2021
'Toll', winner of the Environmental Defenders Prize in the 2019 Ginkgo Prize, is included in Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency, edited by Kate Simpson (Valley Press, July 2021).
- an Autumn 2021 Poetry Book Society Special Commendation
- one of 'The best poetry books of 2021', Guardian, 6 December 2021
Contact
Emma acknowledges the kind assistance and support of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Author photos by Jonathan Ryder
