Full Description
Whip-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.
Contents
9 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
