top of page
20220929_Emma_print_0049 - Jonathan Ryder Oct 2022.jpg

Emma Must

 Poet

429-9781915606044_edited_edited_edited.jpg

Longlisted for the Laurel Prize 2023
 
(Valley Press blog)

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. 

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.
 
Read: Hampshire Chronicle, 25 January 2023; Resurgence & Ecologist, Jan/Feb 2023; Honest Ulsterman, February 2023; Irish Times, 9 March 2023; CUSP, 22 June 2023; Writers Rebel, 13 July 2023
 
Listen: Solastalgia Episode 7: Wolf Moon Part 2, 3 April 2023; Mum Will the Planet Die Before I Do?, 22 June 2023

Royalties from each sale of The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday will be donated to Transport Action Network and the A36/A350 Corridor Alliance.

Autumn 2023 

599---garden-wander-walk-and-writing-workshop-web.jpg

                                                         Saturday 28 October 2023

                                                                 11.00 am - 3.00 pm

(**New date**)

Crescent Arts Centre

2 - 4 University Road

Belfast

Join local poet Emma Must for an early autumn stroll round the Botanic Gardens, followed by a writing workshop at The Crescent.

Writers with any level of experience, or none at all, are most welcome.

 

The walk will last about an hour; the workshop will be guided step by step.

 

Please wear comfortable shoes and bring a notebook and pen.

 

Book your place here

 

 

FORAGE

Leaves

Poetry Jukebox curation

with Maria McManus 

and Institute for Global Food Security 

at Queen's University Belfast

LAUNCH

10.30am

Wednesday 27 September 2023

Institute for Global Food Security, 

19 Chlorine Gardens, 

Belfast

BT9 5DL

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, curated by poets Emma Must & Maria McManus, includes poems which connect with the theme of ‘Forage’: poems about leaves, flowers, berries, stones, moss; poems which pay detailed attention to the natural world around us.

The-Laurel-Prize-for-Nature-and-Ecopoetry-Prizegiving-960-x-600.jpg

BBC Contains Strong Language

The Laurel Prize for Nature & Ecopoetry

 

Ceremony and Readings


Friday 22 September 2023

Howard Assembly Room, Leeds

3.30 - 5.00pm

Watch livestream here

 

Media,1424889,smxx.png

The Wednesday Group Readings 

Hosted by Paul Maddern

Wednesday 13 September
4.15pm - 5.30pm
Canada Room & Council Chambers
Queen's University Belfast

Media,1424889,smxx.png

 

Launch

Thursday 14 September

11.15am

Crescent Arts Centre

2 - 4 University Road

Belfast  

Summer 2023

294362d2878890fe167497bc1bbfe533f8178e7563017132ec259173a2d4e4be.jpg

Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Bellaghy

Saturday 26 August 2023,

2.00pm - 5.30pm

'A Note That Pays You Back': Ten Poets Read and Reflect


To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Seamus Heaney

with Alice Lyons, Niall Campbell, Emma Must, Martin Dyar & Zaffar Kunial (event continues on Sunday)


poetry.jpg

The John Hewitt Society International Summer School

Poetry: Maureen Boyle and Emma Must read from their work

Tuesday 25 July 2023

Market Place Theatre & Arts Centre, Armagh 


bbf23-greens-tolls-weeds.jpeg

Belfast Book Festival

Thursday 15 June 2023 
Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast

Greens, Tolls, Weeds: Zaffar Kunial, Jess McKinney & Emma Must

Alert to pressures of the climate crisis and contested grounds, but also the radical potential in gestures of naming, this year’s festival joins together three poets - Zaffar Kunial, Jess McKinney and Emma Must - whose recent publications crisscross endangered biomes with humane paths, unbinding landscape in voluptuously detailed poetry.

Spring 2023

queens-university-belfast-solastalgia.jpg_width=600&height=600&quality=95.jpg


Solastalgia - Stories of accidental environmental activism in Northern Ireland. Solastalgia names the powerful emotions people feel when encountering and experiencing environmental damage, pollution and destruction. Join Sue-Ann Harding and Colin Shaw, accidental environmental activists living in Belfast, as they hold conversations with ordinary people, who, stirred by emotions, become activists, fighting for environmental respect, regard, protection and conservation. For anyone who has ever felt upset at the loss of even a small patch of nature, confounded by obscure government planning decisions or frustrated and furious at the corporate disregard for our fragile natural world, these stories of struggle offer solidarity. Produced by Stephen Mullen. Music by Sue-Ann Harding


Episode 6: Wolf Moon Part 1

In this episode, we talk with Emma Must, poet, Belfast resident and, in another time and place, an accidental activist. We begin by discovering our common appreciations of the city of Belfast, including Emma’s encounter with the tree-felling and vegetation removal along the River Lagan towpath. “Wolf Moon”, the poem she wrote in response to that devastation, is read here for the first time.


Episode 7: Wolf Moon Part 2

This episode continues the story of poet Emma Must and her part in the extensive and influential environmental activist campaign that worked tirelessly and imaginatively to prevent the carving of a motorway through the beautiful, mythical Twyford Down. We pick up the story in the summer of 1993, when a civil injunction is served against her and 76 others by the Ministry of Transport. We talk about what happened next and the consequences of breaking the civil injunction. Emma also reads from her recent poetry collection, The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday, including the statement she wrote for her court appearance in July 1993, before she was imprisoned.

FtMOAzRX0AIFFkx_format=jpg&name=900x900.jpg

Wednesday 19 April, 8.00pm

The City Library, Grand Parade, Cork | Free

For the Love of the World: Eco Writing with Emma Must, Eoghan Daltun and Grace Wells, presented by Keith Payne


Things being so urgent, when you

open a book its leaves should take you

back to the forest they came from …

(‘Vestige’)

writes Grace Wells, as in tune with the environment around her as are each of these authors. Each as savage and passionate in their concern for the world we inhabit, and that perhaps, with their work and words, we might just make a better place for all living things.

QLruisvU_format=jpg&name=900x900.jpg

Cúirt International Festival of Literature 

Thursday 20 April, 4.30pm
Nuns Island Theatre, Galway

A-Changing-Climate-600x400.jpg

Cúirt International Festival of Literature 

Saturday, 22 April 2023, 1.00pm
Town Hall Theatre, Galway

A Changing Climate: Writing, Activism and the Environment

Manchán Magan, Eoghan Daltun, Emma Must in conversation with Ceara Carney

March 2023

https___cdn.evbuc.com_images_455803589_315739236982_1_original.jpg_w=940&auto=format,compr

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.

January/February 2023

Resurgence and Ecologist magazine 

Issue 336
Jan/Feb 2023

includes 'The Colour of its Voice', an article by Emma about writing her debut poetry collection, The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday (Valley Press, December 2022)

Resurgence Ecologist cover Jan Feb 2023_edited.jpg

Winter 2022

The-Book-of-Life-cover-scaled_edited.jpg

The Book of Life:

Poems to Tide You Over 

edited by Grace Wells 

published by Dedalus Press

11 November 2022

 includes Emma's poem 'After Ophelia'

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'.

Vital_Signs_web_image_(197_×_300px).png

Spring / Summer 2022

issue+13+cover+hi+res.jpg_format=1000w.jpg

Banshee

Issue #13 

Spring/Summer 2022

Includes a new poem from Emma's forthcoming sequence
'The Finds'

What Northern Ireland Means to Me

edited by Allan Leonard and Julia Paul 

Published April 2022

Shared Future News

60847772._SX318_.jpg

Winter 2021 / 2022

UtR Issue 28 COVER front.jpg_etag=W__98e89-61f13cf4_&sourceContentType=image_jpeg&ignoreAs

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.

SharedFuture-20211221-WNIMTM-EM5B2215.jpg
N67-Front-Cover-Final.png

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'.

Trumpet.10_220_347.jpg
hotd_e03_211217b-950x500.jpg





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

Out of Time cover.jpg
Notebook and Pen

Contact

Thanks for submitting!

Emma acknowledges the kind assistance and support of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Author photos by Jonathan Ryder

ACNI_LF_1_289_4CP.jpg
bottom of page