COW: Carolyn Hashimoto

Carolyn Hashimoto’s writing is a bolt, it is what Gayatri Spivak calls a “rearrangement of desire”. Poetry as rumination in supermarket aisles, in bloody vacuum packs, in dairy factories, in dreams, the “long, licky tongue” of Cow is a delirious response to the gruesome catastrophes of capitalism across species: “this is a message for all customers.” Hashimoto’s pendulous writing takes us to aspects of industrial farming we just can’t imagine (even though we know they exist), with language so taut it could burst. To read this book is to realise that it sure AF is worth spilling milk, and crying over it too.  – Colin Herd

A reparative text, Cow reunites the eponymous protagonist with her effluvia in the aisles of the supermarket. ‘Hollow like a Dyson fan’, she pilgrimages the open fridges and chest freezers, reconciled with her catalogue of produce: burgers and mince, butter and milk. This is a collection of absences: announcements ring over the tannoy, but human bodies are largely missing, indicated only by their destructive wake; Cow traverses the empty aisles accompanied by her absent child. The butcher’s block lies empty, its decimation complete. Cow is a record of having been: Hashimoto draws a chalk outline on the ground. – Kat Payne Ware

Carolyn Hashimoto’s COW is a visceral, eerie and surprising portrayal of the ways we make use of farmed animals. But it is also a tender, painful and genuinely funny exploration of exploitation and the universal feeling of being trapped, while longing to break free – Rosanna Hildyard

On Sale 3rd April 2022
Edition of 100 numbered copies. *
ISBN: 978-1-3999-1380-5
Each copy will come with two limited edition postcard prints alongside a COW promotional bookmark or a handprinted ‘OSMOSIS’ bookmark. **

Thank you to Megumi Nachev and Kyle Mackie for providing the cattle images used in the COW prints via Unsplash.

If you are an international customer please get in touch via email – do not purchase a UK copy***

Carolyn Hashimoto is a poet, writer and editor who lives in Dumfries and Galloway. Her debut pamphlet The Chips are Down Here in Lockdown was published in 2021 by OrangeApple Press. Other work can be found in Gutter, 3:AM Magazine, -algia, BlueHouse Journal, perverse. She is the founder and editor of Skirting Around – an online literary journal which examines the politics of women’s clothing through creative writing.

* once stock has been sold, any further purchases will be refunded.
** specific bookmark requests can be made prior to purchase. Multiple bookmark designs can be purchased at £1 each.
***please look at PayPal refunds policy for refunds