Emma Must is a poet from the county of Hampshire in the south of England. She earned her BA in English from Leeds University, where she co-edited the literary magazine Poetry and Audience as a student. Must also holds a diploma from the University of Cambridge in English Language Teaching to Adults (DELTA), a Masters in English (Creative Writing) with distinction from Queen’s University Belfast, and a 2021 PhD in English (Creative Writing) at Queen’s, with a focus on ecopoetry and ecocriticism.
Must was working as a librarian in Winchester in 1992 when construction began on the M3 motorway, slated to bisect an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Twyford Down. She dedicated herself to stopping the new motorway, campaigning widely and co-founding the organization Road Alert!. For the next decade, she worked with transportation activism initiatives including ALARM UK, Transport 2000 (now the Campaign for Better Transport), and the World Development Movement. In 1995, Must won the Goldman Environmental Prize for Europe, recognizing her essential influence on the English anti-road movement.
Must's first poetry pamphlet, Notes on the Use of the Austrian Scythe (Templar, 2015), won the fourth annual Templar Portfolio Award. Her debut full-length collection, The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday, followed in 2022 from Valley Press. The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday explores Must’s experiences in the campaign against the M3. Must, who often writes about nature, won the Environmental Defenders Prize for her poem “Toll” in the 2019 Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry. Her poems have been published in periodicals including Poetry Ireland Review, Magma, Abridged, Banshee, The North, Under the Radar, and The Honest Ulsterman. Her work has also appeared in anthologies such as The Book of Life (Dedalus, 2022), Vital Signs (Poetry Ireland, 2022), Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency (Valley Press, 2021), Hold Open the Door (UCD Press, 2020), and Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets (Dedalus, 2019).
Must was named as one of the “Rising Generation” of poets by Poetry Ireland Review in 2016. The recipient of an ACES Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Must’s honors include a second-place win in the 2013 Strokestown International Poetry Awards, Highly Commended work in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2018 & 2019, and Commended work in the 2016 Resurgence Poetry Prize for Ecopoetry. She co-founded and co-hosted the Open Mic Poetry series of events at the Isle of Wight’s Quay Arts. Must has lived and worked in China, Mexico, Spain, and other locales around the globe. Currently living in Belfast, she teaches academic and creative writing in universities and the broader community.
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More Emma Must
Video: Must reads two poems for the John Hewitt Society
Text: Three poems by Must at Zócalo Public Square
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Photo by Matthew Thompson.