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Toni Bee is a poet, educator, and advocate. Raised in Dorchester and educated in Roxbury, where she grew her daughter up on the other side of the bridge and became the elected 2011 Poet Populist of Cambridge, the first woman to grace that position. Bee was also the 2016 Inaugural Cambridge Poetry Ambassador. Toni has worked with youth for years and extensively with the City Spotlight teens of The Wang Theatre.

Poet Toni Bee at the Bloc 11 Cafe in Somerville.

Dear Twilight

Sum perfect five a.m., and lo birds a’twerp

Hollering for food, beholding to the Lord

Loving the sun awake with song

(as I scream my free inside)

A tall, decades old doze awakens in me

and still

Tree of poets – my ears seek you always

Artists’ scape – your colors, total family black, intonate me

I have too feigned for art-light, your gift is

My private peek at brilliant spark of God

Sparkle, shine

may I grab onto your windswept features,

nibble the gift He gave you,

share with others

while I still

have a

chance

— Toni Bee

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