Literary Work
A/PART gathers the multivalent and polyphonic voices of queer Southeast Asian poets who have experienced conditions and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It considers how we have been affected and transformed, creating a space for poems that reflect our diverse experiences during these troubled times.
The title of the digital anthology reflects how we have been separated from one another through social distancing, lockdown, community quarantine, and other measures devised to mitigate risk and exposure to the virus. And yet it also speaks of a shared experience, of be/longing, of how each of us becomes part of a bigger tapestry in such a fraught moment in history.
Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.
Philippines
Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr. (he/him) is the author of Aria and Trumpet Flourish and and co-editor of SingPoWriMo 2018: The Anthology. His second poetry collection, Tangere, is forthcoming from the University of the Philippines Press. His poems have been published in Likhaan: The Journal of Contemporary Philippine Literature, Kritika Kultura, Tomas, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, and other journals and anthologies. He has received prizes from the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, Kokoy F. Guevara Poetry Competition, Sixfold, British Council, among others. Born in the Philippines, he has been based in Singapore since 2011.