"And Aeneas Stares into Her Helmet" on Philip Metres' Blog

I'm grateful to amazing poet Philip Metres for writing about my book of poems, And Aeneas Stares into Her Helmet (Carolina Wren Press 2009). Philip is author of Sand Opera, (Alice James Books, 2015). Thank you, Philip! He writes:

I've been reading Tiffany Higgins' And Aeneas stares into her helmet (Carolina Wren Press Press (2009), a book-length meditation on the wars of our recent age. Higgins does a remarkable discipline by staying with the war, measuring the extent of its merging in us, its emergence from us. Neither expose nor diatribe, Higgins stays with it, dances in time with it, in its time.

Since the recent imperial wars seem not to require anything more than our silence, such a poetic perseverance is itself an achievement; whatever the gain of having a professional army (and not a volunteer one), we collectively have lost by our greater distance from the brutalities of the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. We need to stop burying that brutality. The truths will out, Wikileaks or no Wikileaks, Assange or no Assange.

Here's a video I featured before, from Higgins, which explores the way the war is both with us and invisible to us. Watch the "Where is the War" video here

Read Philip Metres' blog post on And Aeneas Stares into Her Helmet here

Grand Canyon from Space Video

One day two years ago, a man ties a GoPro camera to a little white balloon. He releases it. In the video, we see him letting us go: his open hand a goodbye. Then, we ascend above the red earth until we can see a red squiggle through the Southwest. It is the Grand Canyon.

After rising steadily through red-orange earth, our little balloon now matures. It takes in the inky black of space, separated from the earth by a hazy, yet luminous, line that wobbles back and forth as our dirigible bobbles happily through space.

Departing, a peace descends-ascends: oh, this is it, to travel beyond the confines of earth, to edge away, above, beyond. To be freed.

Just then, at more than 100,000 feet above the planet, we see a pale drippy thing scurry past our gaze. Our camera eye is abruptly swiveled 180 degrees upward. Before our shredded self, a hundred white confetti bits explode outward across an azure blue background. They--we--drift. A little meteor shower of dispersed skin. So beautiful.

No time for that, now. We plummet crazily downward, a Charlie Chaplinesque comedy of sped up time. Just as easily as we left the earth's confines, we are deposited solidly again in the low, ochre field, which doesn't hesitate to take us--or is rather indifferent to us--as we, who have known such expanses, stare again our camera eye at the close, dried, yellow brush.

Just wondering: Which place is the homecoming?

Watch Grand Canyon from Space video here

Poetry Mixtape Video: "The Nearness of You" in SF's Bangout Reading Series

On March 23, 2012, I read at the Amnesia Bar as part of SF's Bangout Reading Series. Thanks to curators Kevin Boone and Amick Boone! The theme we prepared new work on: "Mixtape." I read & sang my poem, "The Nearness of You," which mixes statistics on species extinction from scholar Juliet Schor's wonderful book Plenitude, with my singing Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory," with my original ode to the beautiful and endangered Owl Butterfly, which I had the honor of seeing face to face in the rainforest of Ecuador in 2009. A mixtape indeed! Watch the video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 2, "Ocean" in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the second part of the poem, video "Ocean." Watch the poem video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 3, "Coil of Dirt" in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the third part of the poem, video "Coil of Dirt." Watch the poem video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 4, "Cosmos" in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the fourth part of the poem, video "Cosmos." Watch the video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 5, "Epilogue," in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the fifth and last part of the poem collaboration, video "Epilogue." This last video shows off Michele's amazing skills in drawing. Here we see an amazing bestiary of animals both real and from Michele's imagination. Watch the video here.

Poetry Animation, Part 1, "You Bear the Scar at the Base of Your Spine" in SubZERO Festival

In June 2012, artist Michele Guieu and I collaborated on the themes of species extinction and biodiversity. Michele is an amazing animator and painter. Our poetry animation was shown on a giant brick wall, the side of a building in downtown San Jose, as part of the SubZERO festival. Here is the intro to the poem, video "You Bear the Scar at the Base of Your Spine, Where Lies the Shadow of the Moon." The video introduces Michele's bestiary of single celled beings that first began us, way back in the beginning. Watch the video here.

Eletrosfera

A video poem by Marcio-Andre, a Brazilian performer and sound artist. The first part is a bit repetitive, but if you can hold tight, the middle and end are more active, with the words "versa" (with various meanings in Portuguese, including that of poetic verse) and "materia" (matter, subject) seeming to war with one another, in sound and space. Finally, the whole thing dissolves in a cacophony of memes. View Marcio Andre's video here.

Oct. 28 Reading Video

I read Oct. 28 at the Berkeley Unitarian Church. Thanks again to Mickey Huff for inviting me! Here's a video of the 20 minute reading.
See the video

Where is the War Video

In this short film, produced by Moises Nascimento based on my poem of the same name, we look for where the war lives in our lives. We journey across the SF Bay Bridge, making the circle of a daily commute, going out in the morning and returning at evening.
Watch the video

Film: Where Is The War Plays D.C.!

Moisés and I are pleased to announce that our short film, Where Is The War?, has been selected to be shown in the Film Program of the Split This Rock Poetry Festival, in Washington, D.C.!

Thursday, March 11, there will be two (2) screenings:
-- 2-3:30 p.m. FREE
-- 10:30 pm.-midnight. Cost: $8
Location: Busboys and Poets Café @ 14th & V.
2021 14th St
NW DC 20009
(202) 387 - POET (7638) Map and parking info: http://www.busboysandpoets.com/about_14th.php

Please pass the word on to your friends in D.C.!

Where is the War?, based on my poem of the same title, follows a work commute as we hear the poem asking, "Where is the war?" The camera searches for where the war lives in our daily lives. As we move through roads, phrases from the poem are transposed on the screen, over images of blue sky and cars crossing the San Francisco Bay Bridge.

The journey is based on the lines:
does it live, this war
in one hundred thousand commuters
each sheathed in her metal, gliding
glissando, fearing no danger?
The soundtrack is my reading the poem, accompanied by Moisés on guitar.

The end of the film is Moisés’s haunting playing as we return by night in the tunnel. Red brake lights fill the tunnel with red.

In the final shot, we end in a schoolyard, with a tire swing swinging, still looking for the movement of where the war lives in us.

In Where is the War?, our intention is to show by absence. There are no people in the film, only cars with invisible drivers, moving soundlessly through that most familiar of rituals, the morning commute. By feeling the absences, we feel presence. Augmenting the voiceover, key phrases float in objects, so that poetry appears to emerge from landscape.

Split This Rock Poetry Festival Public Event Listing: http://www.splitthisrock.org/schedule_2010/publicevents2010.html

I Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night

This is from our reading at Pegasus.