Multi-disciplinary creative Toni Panagu approaches art with a trusty guitar and a way with words that translates beautifully in rhythm and rhyme.
Poetry had been in Panagu’s life for as long as he could remember. In school, whenever the lectures were starting to get boring, he would busy himself with writing poems at the back of his notebook instead of drifting off to sleep. For a time, these lines would never really escape these bound sheets of paper, until a friend suggested that he start posting them on Facebook.
Eventually, he would join an organization, Linangan sa Imahen, Retorik, at Anyo (LIRA), where he would learn the conventions of traditional poetry. Soon after, he would start pursuing his craft on his own terms, and before long, would start writing his own lyrics, too.
“’Yung tatay ko, binilhan ako ng murang gitara sa Surplus (My father bought me a cheap guitar from Surplus),” he said as he pointed out his father seated a few rows away from us in the auditorium where he had just finished performing.
With his own guitar and a pirated CD of The Beatles’ greatest hits, Panagu would then teach himself how to play these songs strum by strum, and chord by chord.
