Saint Mary's

English Language and Literature
Assistant Professor
(he/him)
Phone: 902-420-5860
Office: MN320
Email: luke.hathaway@smu.ca

Overview

I am a trans professor, poet, and librettist, who teaches courses in creative writing, Classical/ancient literature, poetry, and the poetics of the archives, within the English department — though many of my courses are cross-listed with other departments/programs (Ancient Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Atlantic Canada Studies, Linguistics).

Beyond the university, I mentor poets through the Amadeus Choir's Choral Creation Lab, and collaborate with countertenor Daniel Cabena as part of the metamorphosing ensemble ANIMA, creating and commissioning new works inspired by early music sources ().

I am interested in poetry and liturgy, in the transitional spaces that open up to us through art, in writing for the embodied voice, in the emergent properties of collaboration. I love working with students on hybrid projects — scholarly and makerly, creative and critical ….

My scholarship is of the nature of research-creation: I write poems and make libretti (words for music), and create works for the stage, sometimes bringing them to life in my own body and voice, as a performer.

I am the author of The Affirmations: poems (Biblioasis, 2023) — named a best book of the year in the Times (London, U.K.) — and of many other works for print and for the stage.

 

SELECTED WORKS

 

Books

• The Affirmations (poems). Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022. 120 pp.
• Years, Months, and Days (poems). Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2018. 69 pp.
• All the Daylight Hours (poems). Toronto, ON: Cormorant Books, 2013. 99 pp.
• Groundwork (poems). Emeryville, ON: Biblioasis, 2011. 64 pp.

 

Chapbooks

• Membra Jesu nostri: a sung devotion (a poetic sequence). With Daniel Cabena. London, ON: Baseline Press, 2023. 20 pp.
• New Year Letter (a long poem). London, ON: Baseline Press, 2020; second edition 2021. 32 pp.
• The Temple (poems). London, ON: Baseline Press, 2018. 28 pp.

 

Multimedia works

• Ghost Story (a short film). With Aliayta Foon-Dancoes, Paul MacIntyre and Liam Ross Gibson. Thirtyminutes, 2023. 

• Heavy Weather (an audio-visual album). With Aliayta Foon-Dancoes, Paul MacIntyre and Liam Ross Gibson. Thirtyminutes, 2021.  

• At the Baptists’ Cove (music video / digital time capsule). With Benton Roark. re:naissance opera IndieFest 2020.   
• This Is Not Safe: a meditation (documentary short). With GaRRy Williams, Alexa Bella Katya, Colleen (Coco) Collins, and James MacLean. DaPoPo Theatre, 2020.  

 

Performances

• Membra Jesu nostri: queer cantatas (with Daniel Cabena / ANIMA). Premiere at 10C Community Hub, Guelph, ON, 25 June 2023.
• The Sign of Jonas (folk opera, with Benton Roark / ARKORA). Workshop at First Light, Saint John’s, Newfoundland, November 2021; premiere at the English Harbour Arts Centre, NL, 1 Aug. 2023.
• Navré de ton dart: a medieval transition story (with Daniel Cabena, Paul Genyk-Berezowsky, and Judith Souman / ANIMA). Premiere at Sackville Festival of Early Music, Sackville, NB, 23 Sept. 2022.
• The Temple (with Zachary Wadsworth and Daniel Cabena / ANIMA). Premiere by Spiritus Ensemble, St John’s Anglican Church, Kitchener, ON, 28 Jan. 2018.