Five questions for Emilie Zoey Baker
JA
November 09
Emilie Zoey Baker is a multi award-winning poet and slam champion. She has toured Canada, New York and Chicago and is the spoken word editor for Cordite, as well as the author of She Wore The Sky On Her Shoulders. Spike sat town with her over the digital divide to hear some choice words about scribbling on trams, dark matter, and plans to develop a slam that will make the Rock Eisteddfod look like the waiting room of the tax office.
What’s a typical day spent writing like for you? Can you describe your routine?
I long for a routine – I envy people with routines. If I had one, I’d get up in the morning and write for three hours, sipping green tea and eating pineapple. Then I’d do my poetry exercises (an hour of metaphor-ups, and hour of simile-punches) Then I’d read poetry under an oak tree, go swimming in a blue lake, and end it all with some impeccable prose. However, my real life is so busy and scattered I usually write poetry on trams, spilling takeaway coffee all over myself.
Where does a poem start for you, with text or with sound?
I like to research, collecting words and making a kind of palette which I will then use to write. Googling, YouTubing, reading and pulling from the world around. You can’t paint a picture without a palette, and for me, the same goes for making poetry. For example, I was involved in a multimedia production last year with poets Sean M Whelan, Alicia Sometimes and Paul Mitchell for the Melbourne International Arts Festival called ‘Elemental: Poetry at the Planetarium’. Each poet chose a scientific theory to explore. I chose to write about Dark Matter. Researching it was as fun as writing it as my colours turned into a yawning multiverse of distant sparkling electrons, exploding stars and endless possibilities.
How do you go about preparing for a Poetry Slam?
In a poetry slam the audience judge contestants by holding up a score out of ten. So when writing for a slam you are writing for a general audience. Your poetry has to be short, sharp, to the point and somehow also delightful, deep, energetic and perhaps a tiny bit funny. No problem… Slam poets (the pros, anyway) rehearse down to the second as there is often a time limit and you’re penalised points for going over. Marc Smith (the creator of slam) once said: ‘The points are not the point, the point is poetry’, but you really don’t want to lose any of those sexy points…
Do you write full time or do you have a ‘day job’? How does this help/hinder your writing?
I am the Education Officer at the Australian Poetry Centre (recently re-christened Australian Poetry). I am lucky to be knee-deep in poetry at all times. Lately, this means I go into schools and conduct workshops, slowly introducing slam into the Australian classroom. It’s a hard one as NO-ONE has ever even heard of slam. This year we ran the first-ever Teen Team Slam as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival, and I’m hoping to develop a national teen competition that will make the Rock Eisteddfod look like the waiting room in a tax office.
Finally, what was the last poem you loved, and why?
I was recently lucky enough to be at the Berlin International Literature Festival (and was even more fortunate to be the winner of the Festival’s international slam – a little self-promotion), and all the participating poets were given an anthology featuring work by their fellow guests. The poems were in a host of different languages and translated into German, but there was one particular poem in English called ‘The Fox and The Angel’ by Sujata Bhatt that I carried with me all around the world (the book was quite heavy, so it was a determined act). The poem melted me and I read it over and over; it’s in that perfect place between nature, mythology and fantasy. I like to visit there often. The first stanza:
Fox Says:
Here’s a soft white cocoon
with a silkworm inside
I found it on a twig, behind a leaf –
I have brought it for you.
I have carried it in my mouth
so it is as warm as a birds egg –
You can listen to Emilie’s contribution to the Melbourne Poetry Map, ‘A night in the Degraves St subway’, here.
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Comments
09 Nov 10 at 15:50
Great interview! Keep fighting the good poetry fight EZB.
...09 Nov 10 at 16:27
Very inspirational! I’m a teacher and writer of poetry and short stories. I’ve had great success this past year with poetry in my junior English classes and I’ve started a poetry club at school but would love to do more! It would be great to have you visit Emilie. How do we organise this?
Mel
...10 Nov 10 at 16:36
Fabulous interview, very inspiring.
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