Emma Lew (born 1962) is a contemporary Australian poet.
Born in Melbourne, Emma Lew studied arts at Melbourne University and worked as a deckhand, shop assistant, proof-reader, and clerical assistant, only beginning to write poetry in 1993.
Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. Her first volume of poems, The Wild Reply, won the 1998 Mary Gilmore Prize and was joint winner of The Age 1998 Poetry Book of the Year Prize. Her second book, Anything the Landlord Touches, published in 2002 and reissued in the UK by Shearsman Books in 2006, won the 2003 C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry (Victorian Premier's Prize) and the 2003 Judith Wright Calanthe Prize for Poetry (Queensland Premier's Prize).
A collection of German language translations of selected poems, Nesselgesang, was published in 2008 (translations by Mirko Bonne).
Poetry
The year comes as the sun sets
my eyes swell with simplicity
the call of human nothingness
the answer of everything
i find myself lost in your majesty
The worlds tells of innocence
like the child inside of me
it's only good while its hearts beats beauty
brave the pain
so you may drink of me
You left me
as i walk beside the water
look up to the moon
my life becomes a river
as i run into you
Stars prick their bed of pink
bleeding blue
find there way to you eyes
as i stare into you
self falls away in the twilight
this is the first of our summer nights
now there is nothing we must be or do
If i could freeze this moment in time
i'd frame it and hang it in the hall of divive
i'd call the whole world and beg them to see
how much we love
how lucky i'd be
You left me
as i walk beside the water
look up to the moon
my life becomes a river
as i run into you
I don't know where we end up begin
i don't know if that's yours of my skin
i've got nothing to lose
everything I am i give up to you
As i walk beside the water
look up to the moon
my life becomes a river
as i run into you
I walk beside the water
look up to the moon
my life becomes a river
as i run into you
Comes as the sunsets
my eyes swell with simplicity
self falls away in the twilight