Biographical info on Rofel Brion
Rofel is a poet and a formidable Filipino teacher.
1983, Filipino faculty at the Ateneo Junior Summer Seminar
1987, facilitator at the Creative Writing Workshop
Had an office and room at Cervini dorms
Moderator for the Humanities Club
Chairman of the I.S. department
Went to the United States to pursue writing fellowships under the Fullbright program
Visited Ann Arbor, Michigan, Bowling Green, Ohio, Manhattan, and tri-state area
Rofel Brion’s writing
He believes that “everone can write.”
Rofel is fluent in English but he has a lack of ease in it at least in his poems.
I prefer his poems in Filipino to his poems in English. I take pleaasure in the sound of his words. I love the rhythm of the language and the simplest images they evoke. There is all of nature: flower, tree, rock, mountain, sunbeam, and then there are the people—father, mother, family, friend, God. Rofel’s poems have a purity—even bareness—that almost makes them “un-poetry.” They are without affection, without overtly poetic language, and yet intensely personal, often lyrical. His words are solid and heavy in the hand or light to the touch, or salty or sweet on the tongue, and yet also, always, basic and elemental… like water, like earth, like air. The poems are deceptively complex in their simplicity.
I see his great love for single, singular images and his special affection for certain Tagalog words—inaakit, tahimik, busilak.* I feel his steadfast, integral faith, his deep and overwhelming capacity for friendship but also for love. I also sense her loneliness.
The audience and themes of Rofel’s writings
His poems are signposts to the kindred, little notes to other friends, to beloved family members, musings and reflections on the spirit and also, quite naturally, prayers.
References
Brion, R. G. (2013). Kapag Natagpuan Kita = Once I Find You. Ateneo de Manila University Press.