I couldn’t help but romanticize the feeling.

I rose from my seat and walked a few steps up the stage when the event’s host, the future National Artist Carmelo ‘Vim’ Nadera, called out my name in such a grand manner. For a moment, I thought he was introducing a rock star and not this one passerby.

It was the first night of Open Mic: Pan de Panitikan, April 17, at 87-year-old Kamuning Bakery Café in Quezon City, and I had acquiesced, with a bit of hesitation, to the event’s master planner, Wilson Lee Flores, to come and recite my own poem or two. It was also to be my debut in a poetry reading soiree since college under the great poet, Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, a hundred years ago.

On stage, while sizing up the historic venue with a vintage, burned-down, all-brick fugon (wood oven) on one side, I was suddenly seized by a flashback moment. I remembered those many moonlit nights back in the late 1970s when we would sit enrapt before an open-air stone stage in Fort Santiago in Intramuros to watch theatrical plays staged by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA).

I suddenly missed director Lino Brocka, who was behind the staging there of plays like "Larawan" and "Mga Ama, Mga Anak," among others. During those times, leading stars from film like Nora Aunor, Lolita Rodriguez, Rita Gomez, Charito Solis, Robert Arevalo, Dante Rivero, Laurice Guillen, walked the PETA stage to act in plays.

Now, here we are, reciting poetry, listening to quaint guitar music being performed, in a smaller, rundown, brick-lined setting reminiscent of Fort Santiago. I remembered Nick Joaquin calling such outings as tertulia, and our material, poesia.

I thanked Wilson and his partner in-crime, the literati Vim Nadera, for launching Pan de Panitikan (PDP), a title coined for sure by Vim himself. I thanked them for providing a platform for young and old voices to express themselves through poetry drawn from the depths of their souls.

I read two of my poems, "While I Still Can" and "Rush Hour," which both came out in Philippines Graphic Reader, to which I am also most thankful for reviving interest in the literary arts.

According to Wilson, PDP is a celebration kneading together poetry, music, and community, gathering at its inaugural presentation, a mixed crowd of senior and junior poets and other wordsmiths.

Held in celebration of Buwan ng Panitikan (Literature Month), the event transformed the heritage bakery into a living stage for the spoken and sung word.

Aside from poet and UP professor Vim Nadera, on hand to perform their poetry were Dr. Michael Coroza, Ron Canimo, Regina Amit, Freddie Lazaro, and a chorus of emerging young poets.

A special guest was actor Cesar Montano, who read his own poem, "Kalayaan."

Flores said Pan de Panitikan will be held every last Friday of the month, welcoming not only poetry but also music, spoken word, theatrical excerpts, storytelling, monologue, and other literary forms.

The goal is to make Kamuning Bakery Cafe a literary haven, where, indeed, several book launches had been held in the past.

Kamuning Bakery Café has long been a quiet patron of the arts, celebrating UNESCO’s World Poetry Day every March 21 alongside a roster of literary greats.