"Coffee or Tea for Poem" to Promote Love for Poetry

Wazzup Pilipinas!

"Poetry is an act of peace." – Pablo Neruda

To promote love of poetry, “Coffee or Tea for Poem” will be held on March 21, 2017 the whole day Tuesday to celebrate UNESCO’s “World Poetry Day” for the second year in Quezon City’s pioneering, 78-year-old, artisanal/pugon-style Kamuning Bakery Cafe. Customers can pay for their coffee or tea drink with their original poem in any language that day at No. 43 Judge Jimenez St. corner K-1st Street, Kamuning, Quezon City.

All published poets who bring their book or magazine with their original poem shall also be given FREE coffee or tea on that day.

The verses will be published on Kamuning Bakery Cafe’s Facebook page. Kamuning Bakery Cafe also hopes to publish a literary journal, primarily celebrating poetry. KBC owner Wilson Lee Flores is a writer who started writing poems in four languages as a student, his late mother educator Mary Young Siu Tin also wrote poetry.

On March 21 morning, the special guest of Kamuning Bakery Cafe’s “Pandesal Forum” with media and intellectuals will be Singapore Ambassador Madame Kok Li Peng. Apart from hosting the tertulia-inspired, non-partisan “Pandesal Forum” for newsmakers and leaders, Kamuning Bakery Cafe hosts other cultural events for artists, thinkers and poets.

Kamuning Bakery Cafe also hosts book launchings, such as those by ex-President Fidel V. Ramos, former Senate President Edgardo Angara (whose late cousin theater artist Zenaida Angara Amador was a neighbor and “suki” customer of Kamuning Bakery), and the only Filipino winner of USA’s American Book Award, New York-based author and activist Ninotchka Rosca. Kamuning Bakery Cafe welcomes art exhibits on paintings, photographs, etc.

8 reasons why “Coffee or Tea for Poem” project at 78-year-old Kamuning Bakery Cafe?

— Highlight the rich legacy of poetry in the Philippines and Asia
— Encourage the love and writing of poetry, an art which ennobles & humanizes people.
—Promote more poetry readings
— Help in bringing poetry out of classrooms & literary circles into public places like a cafe
— Highlight importance of poetry to culture and better quality of life
—Help promote poetry to the mass media and social media
— Encourage more publication and distribution of poetry books
— Encourage better appreciation of and support for poets and poetry