About

M.L.Emmett was born in Reading, Berkshire, England. Just up the road from Rickie Gervais, Marianne Faithful and not far from Kate Winslet – had she been born at the time. After a 15 year careeer as a Registered Nurse, working mainly in ICU, Rretrieval & Casualty she left to start another life. She gained a BA Hons from the University of Adelaide, mainly studying Classics and English. After a nursing interlude she returned as a postgrad to Uni of Adelaide. During her time as a Commonwealth Scholar, doing a PhD,she worked as a tutor; then Lectuer/Tutor teaching a variety of Media subjects. She lectured on Advertising, Medical Advertising, Marilyn Monroe and CowboyMovies.

Now, she is a professional poet, reviewer and editor. But she currently works voluntarily as the Convenor of Friendly Street Poets Inc. – the longest running poetry reading and publishing group in the southern hemisphere, currently in its 37th year of operation.  She has worked as their Publishing Officer, editing and producing anthologies, New Poets volumes and Single Poet volumes. She instigated FSP Mentorship program and enjoys working as a Mentor.

She worked for 5 years at Radio 5UV in her undergraduate days starting in 1977 (when she first went to FSP but was too scared to read, unlike classmate Mike Ladd!). She wrote and broadcast film, theatre & book reviews for the Saturday Arvo Show. In 2005, when she returned to teaching at the University of Adelaide, she re-trained in radio production and broadcasting. Having rejoined FSP she worked to combine these two passions. After lots of  delays, disappointments, frustrations and faffing around, in September 2010, the program Poets on Air finally began. You can hear her on air at the best community radio station in the world – bar none – Radio Adelaide (5UV) 101.5FM with other team members every Tuesday afternoon at 3.30pm – 4pm. This is live streamed on Central Standard time Australia.

She has learned many things as Convenor such has how to fill out grant applications, grapple with Excel, grant acquittals, budgets and their revisions. She prefers making flyers, listening to other poets and organising gigs within the community to get poetry out to the masses of people who love it. During National Poetry Week in the last two years, thanks to the fantastic Minister for Heath John Hill, the RAH management and the brilliant Catering Staff & their management, poems were delivered to every patient in the RAH on their meal trays.

She still loves Art and Science so has done everything she can to connect with RiAus and the Art Gallery of SA. She has scripted three performances at the Art Gallery with the many talented FSP poets, and performed at the exhibitions of Otto Dix etchings; John Brack‘s retrospective and Rupert Bunny.

She swims, paints, sews, embroiders, watches lots of films (especially Danish, Swedish, Italian, English & French ones). She watches French news everyday in an effort to keep her French somewhere near workable, likewise Italian. She likes TV but rarely anything American. The obvious exceptions being The Wire, Deadwood, Down in the Tremay, & South Park.

She reads anything, but loves crime fiction (Henning Mankell, Michael Connelly, Iain Rankin and Peter Robinson) to relax. She vows never to read another Kay Scarpetta, Agatha Christie or Janet Ivanovich in her life.

Her favourite Oz writers are: Germaine Greer, Kate Grenville, David Malouf, Helen Garner, Geraldine Brook, Sue Woolf, Drusilla Modeski.

Poets: Tess Driver, Kerryn Tredrea, Janet Frame, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Lionel Fogarty, Louise McKenna, Rachael Mead, Jelena Dinic, Jules Leigh Koch, Aidan Coleman, Ken Bolton, Molly Murn, Jill Jones, Susan Fealy, Bruce Dawe, Rob Hardy, Thomas Sullivan, Mike Hopkins, Tiggy Johnson, Graham Nunn, Jenny Toune, Indigo, Royce, Janet Jackson, Gabrielle Everall and many more at FSP.

Loved poets from the past: Wilfred Owen, Thomas Hardy, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, DH Lawrence, TS Eliot (especially Four Quartets), Baudelaire, Verlaine, Geoffery Thurley & many more…