Welcome to London Grip…

  … an international journal featuring reviews of shows, events and books
and supporting its own  poetry magazine London Grip New Poetry 

Editor: Stephen McGrath    editor@londongrip.co.uk

Poetry EditorMichael Bartholomew-Biggs    poetry@londongrip.co.uk

London Grip was founded by Patricia Morris in 2007 as a wholly independent online cultural omnibus offering intelligent reviews of current shows, events and books and providing space for well-argued articles on a wide range of topics.  It was also intended to act as an exhibition space for cross-media arts and to include an in-house poetry magazine with its own editor

The site’s name reflects its place of origin rather than signalling any wish to focus only on London events.  As for the Grip, it suggests our uncertainty about where to situate a cultural fulcrum.  Is London, as an influential centre, a stranglehold or a supportive hand under the elbow? By way of response to this question, we make clear that a primary aim is to track down and offer exposure to outstanding creative talent, late or latent, which might otherwise remain hidden in the community.

Since 2011, London Grip’s editor has been Stephen McGrath (editor@londongrip.co.uk) assisted by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs (poetry@londongrip.co.uk) who looks after the quarterly poetry supplement London Grip New Poetry and also handles poetry book reviews.

We have an impressive team of regular contributors but are always open to offers of reviews, articles and especially to submissions of poetry for the issues of London Grip New Poetry that appear in March, June, September and December.  Submission guidelines appear below.

Submission guidelines

All contributions must be original and in a form not previously published in print or on the internet.

Contributors are asked to study previous posts on the website and to conform to our house style.

The copyright of an accepted submission is owned by its author; and in any subsequent re-publication the author should acknowledge that the item appeared first on London Grip.  The posting of an item in effect grants London Grip permission for its electronic use on this website and on the UK Web Archive

Reviews (or proposals for reviews) of art exhibitions, theatre, dance, books etc may be submitted at any time to editor@londongrip.co.uk

Proposals for Poetry reviews (or other articles on poetry) may be submitted at any time to poetry@londongrip.co.uk

Poetry Submissions for London Grip New Poetry must be made in the following windows:  December-January (for the March issue); March-April (for the June issue); June-July (for the September issue) and September-October (for the December issue)

While in practice, we cannot prevent them we do discourage simultaneous submissions.  Our usual response time of two months or less might persuade contributors to be patient enough to give us a right of first refusal

Poetry submissions should be sent to poetry@londongrip.co.uk

Each submission should consist of at most three poems contained in a single Word document (or else in the body of the email).  A short 2-3 line biographical note should also be included.

In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a side street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council.