The Affirmations
Shortlisted for the 2023 J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award • Winner of the 2021 Confederation Poets Prize • One of The Times' Best Poetry Books of 2022 • A CBC Best Poetry Book of 2022 • Nominated for the 2023 ReLit Award for Poetry
"...a trans-mystical work of love and change..."—Ali Blythe, author of Hymnswitch
The mystics who coined the phrase ‘the way of affirmation’ understood the apocalyptic nature of the word yes, the way it can lead out of one life and into another. Moving among the languages of Christian conversion, Classical metamorphosis, seasonal transformation, and gender transition, Luke Hathaway tells the story of the love that rewired his being, asking each of us to experience the transfiguration that can follow upon saying yes—with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, with all one’s mind, with all one’s strength ... and with all one’s body, too.
Luke Hathaway is a trans poet who teaches English and Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s University in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. He has been before now at some time boy and girl, bush, bird, and a mute fish in the sea. His book Years, Months, and Days was named a best book of 2018 in the New York Times. He mentors new librettists as a faculty member in the Amadeus Choir’s Choral Composition Lab, and makes music with Daniel Cabena as part of the metamorphosing ensemble ANIMA.
