Emma Must (England/Ireland). In 2103 Emma read with Michael Longley at a joint John Hewitt Society/Ulster Museum event, and in 2016 she read at the John Hewitt Birthday Reading, alongside Alan Gillis and Iggy McGovern. In 2018, at the Hewitt Society’s Hillsborough Festival, Emma hosted “Foraging for Images”, a combined nature-walk and writing workshop.
In 1995 Emma won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for a campaign against a nationwide road-building program, perhaps most notably the M3 motorway extension at Twyford Down. The campaign resulted in the cancellation of 60 road projects and the development of new transportation policies.
Born in England, Emma now lives in Belfast and holds a MA (Poetry) from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University, where is she about to complete her PhD – the subject of which reflects her history of environmental activism. In 2013 Emma won second prize in the Strokestown International Poetry Awards and in 2015 she won the Templar Poetry Pamphlet competition, resulting in the publication of “Notes on the Use of an Austrian Scythe”. She was included in “New Poets from the North of Ireland” (Blackstaff, 2016), edited by Stephen Connolly and Sinéad Morrissey and in 2016 Emma was named as one of the Rising Generation of poets by Poetry Ireland Review. In 2019 her poem, “Toll”, won the inaugural Environmental Defenders Prize at the Ginkgo Awards.
- Emma’s poem, ‘Toll’ at the Ginko Awards site: https://ginkgoprize.com/toll/
- Emma at Templar Poetry: https://templarpoetry.com/products/notes-on-the-use-of-the-austrian-scythe