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.

As an artist Heather Phillipson works across video, sculpture, drawing, music, text and live events. Significant solo shows include those at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and Art on the Underground's flagship site at Gloucester Road station in 2018. She was Artist in Residence at the Drawing Room London in 2017 and received the Film London Jarman Award 2016. Interest likely from art gallery bookshops including those where she has shown her work (e.g. Tate Modern, Tate Britain, ICA, Serpentine, Whitechapel, BALTIC, and others).

About the Author
Heather Phillipson has published four volumes of poetry, including two full-length collections with Bloodaxe: Instant-flex 718 (2013), which was shortlisted for the 2013 Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, and Whip-hot & Grippy (2019). She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2008, a Faber New Poets Award in 2009, was named a Next Generation Poet in 2014, and received Poetry magazine's Friends of Literature Prize in 2016. She is also an award-winning artist, working across video, sculpture, environments, drawing, music and web projects. Solo projects include the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2020, recent exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery London, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Frieze Projects New York and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, and major commissions for the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Art on the Underground's flagship site at Gloucester Road station, London. She received the Film London Jarman Award 2016 and the European Short Film Award selection from the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2018.

Reviews
Phillipson'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 *



Book Information
ISBN 9781780374673
Author Heather Phillipson
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd