The Ice Beneath the Earth
by Brian Ascalon Roley
AWARDS
C&R Press Summer Tide Pool 2022 Chapbook Selection
ABOUT
Brian Ascalon Roley’s poetry collection, The Ice Beneath the Earth, is an exploration of the intergenerational effects of the violence of war, illness and occupation on individual lives and families. The collections’ personas and characters, who belong to the Navarro clan of his previous works, live in the shadow of the intertwined histories, at times violent, of the United States and its former colony in Asia, the Philippines. Set in the Philippine diaspora in the United States, and in the Philippines itself, this collection spans the 20th Century and explores this history’s aftereffects on the level of personal lives. The characters in these poems grapple with the challenges of disability, illness, and caregiving, as well as their effects on familial relations, in the context of the complex interplay between these countries’ entangled cultures.
PRAISE FOR BRIAN ASCALON ROLEY’S WORK
Praise for Ambucade
“In this collection, Brian Ascalon Roley transports you into the painful world of a father coping with a son’s disability. It is a lament, a rage, and at the same time a love story between a father and his son. This is a wringing read, interesting and satisfying.”
—Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, award-winning author of When the Rainbow Godess Wept
Praise for Brian Ascalon Roley’s The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal
“Roley’s debut in FilAm literature–in American literature, more properly–was auspicious and important. He dramatized (for the first time in novel form, I believe) the plight of thoroughly assimilated and Americanized immigrant young men of Philippine ancestry…American Son is brilliantly written. Roley is one of the most adept writers I have read at using spare descriptions for crisp characterization…Roley’s The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal is an appearance equally auspicious to American Son: a demonstration of the prowess of this writer in the middle of a strong literary career. ..Roley’s American Son and The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal should be required reading for all of us in the diaspora, but don’t read it like it’s required! Enjoy.”
—Vince Gotera, poet and editor emeritus of the North American Review
Praise for American Son
“Two half-Filipino brothers can pass for white, but their mother cannot; painful conflicts are in store for everybody in this complex exploration of racism in California, starting in 1993, a year after the Rodney King Riots.”
—New York Times editors (an Editor’s Choice and Notable Book of the Year).
“Heartbreaking…American Son is a gripping book,”
—Aleksandar Hemon writing in NY Times Book Review
“Roley writes with assurance, grace and insight, and he plays expertly with our perceptions and expectations…the result is both explosive and illuminating.”
—Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times Book Review (a Best Book of the Year)
About the Author
Brian Ascalon Roley
Brian Ascalon Roley is a writer and professor of Philippine and American descent. A recent National Endowment of the Arts Literature Fellow, he is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Miami University. He has held additional fellowships, research appointments and residencies from the University of Cambridge, Cornell University, the Ohio Arts Council, Djerassi, Ragdale, the VCCA, and others. His short works in several genres (Fiction, Poetry, CNF and Hybrid) have appeared in many prestigious journals and in anthologies from Norton and Penguin, as well as several best selling anthologies in the Philippines. His works include American Son (WW Norton), The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal (Northwestern UP), and Ambuscade (FLP Open Chapbook Competition Prize). Learn more about the author at brianroley.com.