Here are some poems and performances from various times and various places:

This is a picture of me trying to play the violin. I obviously can't play the violin.

Screen Shot 2021-01-28 at 2.50.09 pm.png

I am your Laureate!

Here is my poem called Pay Attention.

I

On New Year’s Eve a small river of brown snakes crossed our path
What does this mean? my friends wondered
I said it means we have to stay wide awake this year, pay attention.

Animals are omens.

II

We got a kitten during lockdown
and I taught him to walk on a lead
we named him Panko, a tiny crumb amid a PAN-demic of CO-vid
I would push a harness over his crayon sun face,
then let him lick meat cream from my fingers.
Now he’s tethered, clipped to a lead whenever outdoors, to save the honeyeaters, rosellas, whipbirds, cockatoos and king parrots.
We nicknamed him Clippy.
He comes in and out, making a cat’s cradle with the cord
we have to climb over it as if he’s woven intricate laser beams in a heist movie,
booby-trapped the doorway
Home Aloned us.

The tomato plant near the doorway is wounded from his leash, a slow cut each day
like me on Twitter
like every night I say it will be a new day
but I wake up and think
I better check if the world has ended
log on to the junk feed and absorb everything

I have to pay attention.

III

I wake up covered in dream post-it notes
the urgency of action in an actionless day
the news stapled into my stomach
its metal claws piercing the sides
I kept wishing I’d suddenly change
but there have been way more aspirins than moons.
My belly got big so I named it King George
because mediaeval royalty wasn’t taught to body-shame.

The toilet paper part of lockdown feels so long ago now
the Tiger King part of lockdown
the faked dolphins in Venice part of lockdown
the Universal Declaration of Bunnings Rights part of lockdown
the done-all-of-Brighton part of lockdown
the cranberry juice and Fleetwood Mac part of lockdown
the aerial shots of hospital carparks part of lockdown
the marches, violence and justice part of lockdown

I’m world-sick. But the snakes insisted.

The prime minister waving his Sharkies scarf while we couldn’t hug our friends
the prime minister offering leadership by holding a hammer (not a hose)
the unwanted handshakes turning into gormless grinning elbow bumps.

The air in China suddenly full of clean-crystal hope,
now again heavy with particles
as black as Rudy Giuliani’s skull tears.
Unprecedented times. I watch it unspool.
The Moses-sized divides leave me thirsty
for unpresidented times.
Memes blaze
catastrophes duplicate.
It all thumps through me like bass.

IV

In the beginning I saw myself like a fossil in a rock placed back into a mountain
the imprinted ridges still there, clicking back like a battery
I stayed quiet as the stone around me.
Now I must prise myself out again.
I tried to cry an ocean so the tides might bring back what was there before, wash me up to my own feet
because only an ocean can dissolve a mountain.
I’m not sure who I have become or what I will do.
This year is vibrating with such monolithic symbolism there’s little room for poetry.
Maybe making friends with a kitten is enough.

V

The Rockefeller Christmas owl was hunkered on a branch when they chopped her tree down and hauled it to the Rockefeller Centre.
There’s a photo of the owl placed in a box
looking at us with eyes like angry amber biscuits.
They filled her tree with their city,
added coloured lights and winding tinsel streets
and called her a “stowaway”.
“She wanted to see the Big Apple!”

Christmas reminds us we’re monsters,
shows up our Pac-Man consumerism.
Blowing up ancient caves, tearing down sacred trees for three minutes of highway.
Waving smirk and coal around in parliament.

Decimating forests.

Some cultures believe owls to be messengers for shamans to
communicate with the spirit world
The Rockefeller Christmas owl “got her own” children’s book.

VI

At yoga the teacher let it slip there’s a serpent coiled at the bottom of our spines
then quickly took it back
you’re not supposed to know that yet
she said
but that’s not the sort of thing I can unknow
I googled the hell out of it.

The sickeningly symbolic river of macrocosmic snakes made their way into my spine.
Now I can stay awake and finally close my eyes.

A poem for William Callaghan the boy that got lost on Mt Disappointment

Victoria, don’t be bitter, wear a damn mask. The poem!

For the Red Room Company:

I wrote a poem for kids! Commissioned by The Red Room Australia it's about a hat with tiny woolen ears, when I put it on, I can hear secret things...

For Women Of Letters, Indonesia

My Letter Dear All The Women Who Ever Existed Over The Entire Span Of Human History is now a video! Directed by Semiconductor Media, music by Andrew Watson. E P I C

For I Am Woman

Me performing Julia Gillard's famous misogyny speech .A cobbled together smartphone video performance as part of 'I am Woman'. A one night only Boon Companions event at the Bella Union. with the incredible Ladychoir

For Liner Notes

The best spoken word event in the whole universe is Liner Notes and the Ziggy Stardust edition was my absolute favourite mainly cause David Bowie was there. HE WAS, WATCH!

My tribute to David Bowie's Rock And Roll Suicide

For No Real Reason

My poem: Get A Job!

performed live at the Apollo Bay Winter Wild Festival. July 2017.

The Final Season. November 2.

would you like to read a poem about Robin Wright In House of cards? OK I HAVE ONE it’s called

ROBIN WRIGHT IN HOUSE OF CARDS OMG

Speaking of David Bowie (which I always am)

here's a story about that time he came round to my house with Bing Crosby originally published on The Writers Bloc

https://soundcloud.com/writersblocast/emilie-zoey-baker-does-bowie-and-bing

I wrote a piece for the Monthly!

Published in the 2014 Summer edition about the strange and wonderful time I had at the annual Channel Country Ladies day in Betoota, QLD. The smallest town in THE WHOLE WORLD. SERIOUSLY.

For The Inspired Word NYC

for the 2011 TEDx Melbourne

I was super chuffed and SUPER nervous so ignore the rambling bit at the beginning...

As part of the National Year of Reading 2012

the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations funded a project for professional writers to visit very different workplaces in each state of Australia. Mine was a residency in 7 Victorian Museums, this is the result

Here is a trailer for the short film

(that sadly never got made) Dragon Seed by Barney Danger. I trained for three days with those knives. I am in a catsuit. I like being in a catsuit with knives (DER)

For The Next Wave

We Were Told It Was A Party was originally published in A View From Here, 19 Perspectives On Feminism as part of The Next Wave Festival and has been republished on Right Now, Human Rights Australia (Trigger Warning)