Years, Months, and Days: Second Edition

Description

ANEW YORK TIMESBEST POETRY BOOK OF 2018A transfiguration of Mennonite hymns into heartbreaking lyric poems,Years, Months, and Daysis a moving meditation on the possibility of translation. Bridging secular spirituality and holy reverence with the commonalities of life, death, love, and hope, Luke Hathaway explores the connection between hymn and poem. The sparse and tender phrasing ofYears, Months, and Daysis an offering of words to music, made in the spirit of a shared lovefor life, for a particular landscape and its rhythmsthat animates poem and prayer alike.Praise forYears, Months, and DaysElegant, spare, and quiet, and, like the hymns these poems transfigure, like a prayer set to music.Casey Plett, author ofOn CommunityandLittle FishVespers. Devotional. Breathtakingly sparse. Elegant. Wondrous. Moving. Rare.Kirby, author ofPoetry Is Queer[Years, Months, and Days] is carried by [Hathaways] obvious respect for [his] sponsoring material and by [his] superb ear.New York TimesExquisite . . . deeply resonant . . . . Theres often a metaphysical cast to his forthright observations, which makes them both evocative and poignant.Toronto Star[Luke Hathaways] small and beautiful book should be on your bedside table even if it is as heaped as mine. Just 4 by 5 and fewer than 70 pages, the book consists of untitled, spare, and simply-worded poems which evoke the cycles of life, the seasons, and human longing for meaning and connection. The poems expand in your head, opening your mind to matters beyond the day-to-day.Arc Poetry MagazineThe poems are tiny, seeds only, bare of flourish, each containing the germ of an idea so large the mind can hardly hold it . . . . If you seek to tune those numbered days of yours to what is most frightfully vital, you might carry this book in your satchel awhile. Its tiny enough to conceal in a large pocket, but it thunders, and its seeds carry fields.ImageSingular . . . stirring . . . invites pauses and contemplation. It is [Hathaways] keen sense of what is essential that guides . . . these meditations.Hamilton Review of BooksAn elegant little book . . . [Hathaway] crafts pithy yet piercing poems that echo in the mind.Canadian Literature