Notes on the Use of the Austrian Scythe

Emma Must's debut pamphlet is the winner of the fourth Templar Portfolio Award.

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Affinage

the art of ageing cheese, its science –

so after months of not being touched

come country lanes in northern France

or Belgium, stretching blenched

between thin trees towards horizons:

crossroads, in particular,

like ribs laid flat to point in four

of all the possible directions –

this way reaching to a chapel,

its nave as cold as a pantry,

and that way to a farmhouse where

a woman might offer you a Camembert

so plump and ripe its pale rind

suggests the bloom of skin.

Formerly a campaigner on environment and development issues, Emma Must is currently studying part-time for a PhD in the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, focusing on eco-poetry and eco-criticism. She teaches academic and creative writing.

Her poems have been published in magazines and journals in Ireland and the UK.

In 2013 she won second prize in the Strokestown International Poetry Awards. 

Notes on the Use of the Austrian Scythe was launched in London at Keats House on Tuesday 30th June 2015