Description
Book SynopsisWhip-hot & Grippy is a collection of possibilities in a state of emergency. In the first part, a series of long-form and sequenced poems augment various states of being divided/plural in attempts to activate unauthorised directions. Disrupted tangents are punctuated by recurring muzak, advertising-speak, sex scenes, terrorism, broadcast media, consumption-anxiety, protest, human-animal relations and cosmic departures. Throughout, informed discontent and humour act as drivers of dissent, mining conceptual complexity and testing poetry’s combustible potential. The book culminates in ‘more flinching’, a multi-part poem first published and freely distributed in an exhibition. Merging the news of a military dog, shot in service, with the death of a pet dog, it collapses images with bodies and politics with intimacies, enacting failed attempts to navigate practical and emotional entanglements. Whip-Hot & Grippy is Heather Phillipson's second collection, following her highly praised debut, Instant-flex 718, published in 2013. As well as being an award-winning poet, she is an internally renowned artist whose sculpture, ‘The End’, was installed on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth in 2020.
Trade ReviewPhillipson’s work is often very funny as it rebounds from one untenable erotic or intellectual position to another...sounding like the love child of Frank O'Hara and Rosemary Tonks. -- Sean O'Brien * Guardian *
A visual artist’s debut book-length collection, in which a My Little Pony is mutilated for art’s sake and a plate of mashed potato epitomises domestic drift. Levity and a likeable, direct voice make this innovative and entertaining summer reading. -- Maria Crawford * Financial Times Summer Reading Guide *
For all the playfulness in Instant-flex 718, it also addresses the weighty issues – mortality, the relationship between mind and body, the extinction of species, religion – and its lively combination of intelligence, verve and humour makes it a debut that is both unusually accomplished and unusually pleasurable to read. -- Carrie Etter * Guardian *
Table of Contents9 latest technology 10 Guess what? 12 when did you start feeling like this? 14 it’s not just a conditioning shampoo it’s 15 CHEERS! 19 Take Spanking White Pants 20 some things 25 Earlye in the Morning 29 it’s getting rough for thoughts cut up by conventions we must thump through though it hurts our muscles 30 hankering incarnate & the apocryphal sputum bath-craze 33 Splashy Phasings 35 everything slapped & candied & opening 39 TRUE TO SIZE 41 TRUE TO SIZE 42 TRUE TO SIZE 44 TRUE TO SIZE 46 TRUE TO SIZE 48 TRUE TO SIZE 49 JUNK LOG 53 more flinching 125 Personal Statement
