Heather Phillipson Whip-hot & grippy

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', will be installed on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth in 2020.