Remembering Rofel

On June 8, 2026, Rofel G. Brion, the poet from San Pablo City, died.

Nearly six years before that day, I first encountered Rofel's work through my best friend, Rem, who shared to me a podcast interview of the poet. In that interview, Rofel talked about his work as a teacher, writer, and spiritual guide.

What immediately struck me from that interview was his philosophy of writing which insisted that "one must not take one's writing seriously." He called himself as a lazy poet, claiming that this showed in his poetry, which were short and simple. His insistence that he was a lazy writer culminated when he realized he had to be alone to write. And so he could only write poetry during retreats, which shaped his poetry into prayers, or when alone in nature, which shaped his poems into haiku-like verses. In his foreword to Rofel's book Sandali, Ramón C. Sunico, one of the three members of Rofel's inner poetry circle in Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), confirms this shift in Rofel's writing.

Kung ang mga unang obra ni Boyet ay mga tula ng isang taong nakikisalamuha sa mga kapamilya at kaibigan, ang kanyang mga bagong tula ay likha ng makatang sadyang nag-iisa, pansamantalang lumayo sa ingay at gulo ng pambalanang daigdig upang, sa pugad ng katahimikan, maarok ang mailap na buhay ng kalooban.

(If Boyet's first works were poems of a person in the company of family and friends, his new poems were creations of a poet in solitude, temporarily retreating from the noise and chaos of common life to dwell in the nest of silence and dive into the elusive life of the soul.)

(Sandali, xii)

In the interview, Rofel admits he doesn't write a lot but this doesn't bother him. He even said he didn't care that people plagiarize him because his poems weren't that great anyway. Rofel was, of course, being modest. He studied literature and taught it for years at the university. His works were workshopped and he facilitated workshops himself. His poems have been circulated in numerous literary periodicals, he has published multiple books, and his first book Baka Sakali won the National Book Award in 1991.

But perhaps, despite being an excellent writer, Rofel's insistence to not take his writing seriously opened him up to other callings—teaching and spiritual counseling—which made him an extremely valuable person to many.

When I listened to that interview with Rofel, I haven't read a single poem of his. While he immediately made a mark to me, it was my conversations with Rem after I listened to the interview that convinced me I needed to read more from him who would become one of my biggest influences in my own budding poetry practice.

Rofel and Rem

As I reflect now on Rofel's influence on me, I realize how much that influence is intertwined with my friendship and writing relationship with Rem. When he introduced Rofel to me, Rem was sort of a poetry on the peripheries by choice. He resisted workshops, contests, and publication. Applying to a masters program in creative writing was not part of his plans. Institutional creative writing didn't attract him, and he actively avoided it. In our conversations, Rem had strong reasons for this choice. The biggest reason for his choice, I believe, was his training in one of the well-known poetry programs in the country. That training, which was excessively formalist and, at least at the time of his attending it, was mired with harmful methods of teaching that it left Rem unable to write poetry for at least five years. It was only through years of trying to write again with a group of supportive peers and his unquenchable desire to teach poery that Rem rekindled his poetry practice. When I met Rem in 2017, he has returned to writing poetry, and as our friendship grew, so was my interest in poetry.

It wasn't until 2020, however, in the middle of a pandemic, that Rem's poetic voice and vision reached their strongest expression. Forced into isolation in his house in Batangas, Rem sent invitations to about more than a dozen of his friends, including me, for a nine-week poetry class. Most of us who received an invitation responded positively. Those were times filled with fear, uncertainty, and loneliness, and an online poetry class that met twice a week was something that felt like a refuge to everything happening in the world. We started in March and graduated in around May of 2020 from what would later be known as Tungko ng Tula or Tungko.

It was after facilitating two batches of Tungko that Rem encountered Rofel Brion. I have forgotten how Rem exactly found Rofel's work, but I remember him being very ecstatic about it. For the first time, Rem found a Filipino poet who wrote poems that read like the poems he wanted to write and that he taught others to write—poems that used simple words that one would use in everyday conversations, poems that used concrete images rather than abstractions, and poems that felt good to read and to write. These poems, Rem first found among America's Imagists, particularly Pound and Williams, and later among the Beats, particularly Ginsberg. He also found similar poems in the poetry of Tita Lacambra–Ayala, Rolando S. Tinio (Rofel's teacher), and in one of his students, Victor Reyes (whome we called "Ka Icktoy"). Rem may not have been familiar yet with the Bagay (Thing) poets of Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), a group which would birth writers who would write the poetry he wanted to read and produce. Among all the Bagay poets, Rofel wrote the poems that epitomized Rem's vision for his own poetry.

I remember Rem's ecstasy after buying his first Rofel Brion poetry books, Sandali (2006) and Kapag Natagpuan Kita (Once I Find You) (2013), which he bought through an online sale. Rem's ecstasy was contagious that I later found myself buying the same books. I immediately read Sandali, reading a poem a day in the morning. It immediately sold me to Rofel's work. Here were poems that were light to read, poems that brought me back to the present moment (that place where past and future are pulled), and poems that distilled the complexities of life into simple poems, written in Filipino, that even a jeepney driver, a street vendor, or even child could read or listen to and understand. I brought Sandali with me when I relocated to Los Baños in January 2021 and it accompanied me as I navigated my first month in a new environment.

While in Los Baños, I would later find the time to read Kapag Natagpuan Kita (Once I Find You) and another of Rofel's book May Nagsabi Sa Akin (2012). I read Kapag Natagpuan Kita (Once I Find You) around the same time I started to intentionally re-engage with my complex religious past. Poetry was one of the ways I processed the trauma of leaving my childhood religion, and Kapag Natagpuan Kita (Once I Find You) gave me the permission to write spiritual poetry. Like Rem, Rofel was unapologetic about the kind of poetry he wanted to write. This deep love and commitment to his voice and vision was probably what attracted me the most to his poetry.

I will only meet Rofel for the first time in person about three years after I first encountered his work. Our meeting came on his birthday on October 2022, which was also the launch of his book of short prose Saglit: Ala-ala't Muni (Saglit: Memory and Meditations) (2022).^[1] I was invited through Rem's request. Shortly after encountering Rofel's work, Rem reached out to him and the two started to correspond, doing at least one video call. I also added Rofel on Facebook, but never had the courage to send him a message. When Rofel invited Rem to his birthday and book launch, Rem asked if he could bring a friend who secretly admires Rofel's work. Rofel kindly agreed, and that was how I met Rofel.

[My photo of Rofel and Rem at the launch.]

[My photo of Saglit with Rofel's sign.]

A week after this encounter, Rem, my dear friend, died in his sleep. I felt a need to share the news to Rofel. I told Rofel that my last memory of Rem was at his book launch and that Rofel was a huge influence on Rem as well as me. Rofel replied expressing his condolences. While he can't come to Rem's wake, he invited me to visit him at Casa San Pablo, the famous hotel and restaurant at San Pablo City, so we could talk. I accepted the invitation and we scheduled a day and time to meet. Alas, a really strong storm came around this time. In fact, I wasn't able to come to Rem's inurnment because the roads from Los Baños to Batangas were flooded. Meanwhile, Rem's family and friends were stranded at the crematorium for a night because the roads toward the place were inundated. Because of the storm, Rofel also couldn't come to San Pablo, and so we had to cancel our date.

Rofel and I wouldn't talk again until Casa San Pablo announced that it is hosting a poetry workshop led by him. I immediately contacted Rofel and asked for details, which he kindly provided. More than six months after our first meeting, I saw Rofel at Casa San Pablo (again) as he facilitated along with his friend An Mercado Alcantara. The workshop, entitled Writing to Free Your Heart, offered me a glimpse of Rofel's process, which he also taught to his students at ADMU and continues to facilitate with writing mentees he has online.

At the workshop, Rofel asked us to pay attention to our attention. He asked us to list ten things we noticed around Casa San Pablo. Among the things I listed were small gray butterflies hovering low over the short grass, two guests—probably a mother and daughter—who don't look a like but wore the same shirts, and the gentle jazz piano music from the cafe mixing with the chirping of birds. Rofel urged us to pay attention and listen. "A writer is chismosa (gossiper)," he said.

He then read Rolando Tinio's poem "Bagay," a poem that encapsulates Bagay poetics. Rofel emphasized that contemplation is not only thinking but also feeling. It is seeing with new eyes, which is tantamount to seeing more. This paying attention is what generates words. But he cautioned us not to take haste. He urged us to find pleasure first from what we ought to write about before writing about it. Here he summoned the Tagalog word "aliw," which is often used to mean "pleasure" but also meant "consolation" or "profound joy," particularly in its old usage in the Catholic pasyon^[2]. What I understood from Rofel is that the practice of attention, connected with the practice of poetry, has to have a balming effect on the poet, an effect Rofel said was exemplified in an ambahan poem from the Mangyans of Mindoro which said "Kapag masakit ang ulo mo, lumabas ka sa bahay" (When your head aches, get out of the house). Rofel firmly believe that this therapeutic effect of poetry is accessible to everyone. "Don't be intimidated of poetry," he said. "We are all born poets." This is a view that Noelle de Jesus, translator of Kapag Natagpuan Kita (Once I Find You) affirmed Rofel truly believes, which also placed him at odds with others.

While listening to Rofel, particularly these last two points he made, I can't help but notice the similarity of his views with Rem. Like Rofel, Rem believed that everyone is a poet or at least could become one. Rem also strongly believed in the therapeutic goal (if not mandate) of poetry, using the term "ginhawa poetics" to refer to the kind of poetics he wanted to cultivate.

After Rofel's lecture, he asked each of us six participants to try to write a poem while keeping in mind the things he shared. Here was the poem that came out of the workshop:

SIKMURA

Gusto kong magsulat,
pero mukhang
malasa ang sabaw,
malagkit ang sinangag,
malambot ang bangus,
malutong ang tongkatsu,
madulas ang ensaladang talong,
matamis ang buko pandan,
at malamig ang lemonada.

Kaya sa tanghaling ito,
ang plato ay kwaderno,
ang kutsara ay bolpen,
at hahayaang ang sikmura ko
ang magsulat ng tulang ito.

STOMACH

I wanted to write,
but
the soup seems tasty,
the rice glutinous,
the milkfish soft,
the tongkatsu crunchy,
the eggplant salad slithery,
the buko pandan sweet,
and the lemonade ice cold.

So in this noon,
my plate is my notebook,
my spoon my ballpen,
and I well let my stomach
write this poem.

That workshop ended with a delicious dinner all participants and our two facilitators shared together. I remember going to Rofel personally after dinner before leaving thanking him and asking if I could continue to talk to him about my writing. He said, "Vince, hindi ka namin pababayaan" (Vince, we won't leave you alone).

Rofel and I continued to correspond after the workshop. When he learned that I facilitated a guided walk inside the University of the Philippines Los Baños a month after our poetry workshop at Casa San Pablo, he said he wanted to join one of my walks, preferably when it is colder, in January or February. I told him I will organize a walk for him and some friends on those months in the future. He told me he loves to walk. He walks around Sampaloc Lake when he goes home to San Pablo, but wants to walk in new places.

I reached out to Rofel about a month later after I received word that my application to the Ateneo National Writers Workshop (ANWW) was accepted. It was my first mainstream writers workshop and my baptism to the mainstream Filipino literary space. I had no clue as to what was going to happen and all I could remember was Rem's terrible experience from these sort of trainings. I reached out to Rofel and asked how might I prepare myself for it. In his initial response, he admitted that he isn't familiar with the system of ANWW, but he thinks there are no special preparations required from me and that I should just be open and enjoy it.

I thanked Rofel for his reassurance. But feeling I needed more, I asked him for advice on how I might best be able to provide critique to my co-fellows. I told him that outside of Tungko and our workshop at Casa San Pablo, I have no other experience providing comments to other people's writing. Rofel was very generous in responding to this second question. He told me to expect to hear some ruthless comments about my work. Some of these comments are well-intentioned, others won't be. He said that after his co-fellows and panelists commented on his work during one of the writing workshops he attended, he simply listened, and when asked to speak after, he simply said thank you. He believes that an author shouldn't feel obligated to explain their work. He added that he simply shared his comments about another writer's work when he liked them, sharing what he liked about the work and why. He also asks to clarify things he didn't understand about the work or to provide suggestions to improve it. He ended his answer by saying I just have to do what I already did in Tungko. He believes that all workshops should be safe spaces.

Rofel's advice what what guided me throughout my ANWW experience. After listening to comments from panelists and co-fellows on my work, I simply said thank you. And I structured and expressed my comments to be as helpful as they could be to my co-fellows. My first mainstream writing workshop became life-changing for me because of Rofel's advice.

(How Rofel's writing influences my poetry)

--