Cow by Susan Hawthorne

JUDGES' COMMENTS

A courageous and daring collection that playfully and intelligently uses the symbol of the cow to reimagine a history of modern women. The animals we mostly associate with mooing and milking are imbued with personalities, and voices that ponder the nature of the universe and the female’s presence in it. From this unexpected viewpoint — and by weaving the poet’s wide-ranging interest in and knowledge of classical languages such as Greek and Sanskrit — Cow is both an ode to the bovine and to the multiverse.

Cow, with its obvious interest in and inspiration from India, manages to write about India and the sacred in a fresh, fun and surprising way that goes beyond the regular, often saccharine, retelling of ancient myth. Cow's structure, a series of strings or sections featuring cow monologues, is accompanied by footnotes that illuminate a feminist perspective, world mythologies, language, art and modern history — all contribute to a very rich reading experience. Susan Hawthorne's writing is inventive, has a fine use of allusions and metaphor and she challenges both the reader and herself to make old stories and commonplace creatures mean something new.