A. K. Toney is a poet, writer, and performance artist

Emeline (For Buddy Collete)

• I want to go out through a poem
• Give a little whistle like Buddy Collete and Herbie Mann speaking
• Switch my woodwind from flute to sax
• Then back to swing of be bop
• Playing it again as though a little bird told you…
• Giving secrets to Mingus when he wasn’t great yet
• Riding her is a song coming touching friends
• Known as Alfredo Rivera passing
• Martin Indiana old brass ancient soul
• New blows of breath creating a Jazz Tonic smell
• There was always The Soft Touch
• All for a Girl from Ipanema in Blue Samba
• Why Do You Linger?
• It Can Never Be…

• Overkill to Ascension
• I want to rise counting the Blues and so does every note
• Indigo air forever floating fantasy phantom
• Singing a sound without words
• Be the feeling of a poem
• And show you my Buddy
• A clarinet if ever there heard sheen
• A love scene as if she was Emeline

Parable of Poetry (For Dee Black my Mentor)

• One day the Sun said,
• “Where will we put the water?”
• And the Moon answered,
• “Just Poet on the Tree”
• The Poet Tree

• One day a man named Dee Black became D’Ebony Tree…
• He gave fruit to the people
• He gave shelter, furniture, and tools to comfort the people
• He also gave shade and water to cool the spirit of the people
• He even gave children, men, and women words to breathe with

• When Dee Black was a man he told everyone,
• “That Tree died for you, so don’t you cheat the paper.”
• Paper is made from trees, we write poems on paper
• In other words, “Always tell the truth, never lie!”

• Poems are words that make moments
• You are that moment, make the most of it!
• Make at least a poem for the Poet Tree

• What would wood sound like if it sapped out poetry?
• Drum trap ttt-t-ta-tap ttt-tick ttt-tip
• Bass with bbb-ba-bump-bbb-bom-bub-ba bump
• Or Shekere cha-che-s-shake-chika-che-shake

• If a Tree does all this for me,
• The least we can do is Poet on the Tree
• The Poet Tree
• (Poetry)

A. K. Toney is a poet, writer, and performance artist. For over 20 years Toney has been an active member of the renowned cutting-edge African American arts enclave World Stage Performance Gallery’s Anansi Writer’s Workshop in Leimert Park Village (Los Angeles). Since 1993, Toney’s skills in performance art have led him across the nation and abroad. His experience as a performance artist and educator has allowed him and his organization, Reading Is Poetry, to teach workshops with preschools, elementary, middle, high school, young adults, NAMI, and the Natural History Museum. Toney is also a contributing writer to KCET.