Past & Parallel Lives
**Winner of the 2024 Dorothy Hewett Award**
Time. Memory. Mirror. Past & Parallel Lives is a rippling reflection on being alien, queer, and other. These poems yearn for home and belonging after migration, religion, and coming out. Kaya Ortiz’s award-winning debut shines with authenticity – this is a courageous departure from a past life, towards a queer future and a poetic return to self.
'A gentle and powerful urge to believe in a world where becoming is just as beautiful as arriving.' – Madison Godfrey
'Brimming with incantatory power, Past & Parallel Lives is a luminous contribution to queer Filipino poetics.' – Eunice Andrada
'This collection is a marvel, a miracle. By leaning into the past, Ortiz propels us into a future radiant with queer joy. This book is essential and a must-read.' – Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Kaya Ortiz is a queer Filipino poet of in/articulate identities and record-keeper of ancient histories. Kaya hails from the southern islands of Mindanao and Lutruwita/Tasmania. Their writing has appeared in Portside Review, Westerly, Australian Poetry Journal, Best of Australian Poems 2021 and After Australia (Affirm Press 2020). Kaya lives and writes on unceded Whadjuk Noongar Country, where their name means ‘hello’ in the Noongar language.
