Written by M.N.
Picture below: Author with her book
Information
Author: Elizabeth Acevedo / Genre: Poetry / Published: 2018
Summary
The story The Poet X is composed as a free verse poem and is written from the perspective of the main character Xiomara Batista, a Dominican teenager. Xiomara lives in a ghetto neighborhood where she’s bred to not voice her own thoughts. Even inside her home, no one listens to Xiomara, including her mother who constantly reprimands her for things she doesn’t do. Instead, she uses her fists to vocalize her opinions.
One day, Xiomara notices a poster at school advertising a new Poetry Club and becomes interested in the club on a personal level. For her, she believes that it is her way of voicing her thoughts. However, she doesn’t want anyone- including her mother- to know what kind of poetry she writes. Despite the attempts of her language arts teacher to convince her to join the Poetry Club, Xiomara continues to write in the dark, away from other people.
Through her high school journey, she meets a boy named Aman who she begins to open up to. He becomes the first person ever to hear Xiomara’s poems as she reads them out loud to him. While feeling vulnerable in front of her crush, Xiomara learns that she has people who support her in her creative writing. Her innocent romance with him also inspires her to write more poems. However, her romantic endeavors with Aman are kept a secret from her family as it would have negative implications on Xiomara’s character. Alongside her relationship with Aman, her relationship with her twin brother, Xavier widens as they keep secrets from each other.
At Xiomara’s lowest point in high school, she finally joins the Poetry Club. Despite feeling immense doubt, she reads her poem in front of her peers and earns earnest responses. After this rousing experience, Xiomara realizes that it was one of the few times people wanted to listen to her speak and begins to seek it out through her writing. When she performs in front of a live audience, Xiomara decides to enter the youth slam, a poetry competition for teenagers.
Despite facing everyday stereotypes, expectations, and worst of all, the wrath of her mother Xiomara finds passion in writing and pours all of her heart into her hobby. Through her poetry, she hopes to become more and more of a warrior and to walk the world with confidence, connecting people with her words.
How the Book Relates to the Modern World
As a coming-of-age novel, The Poet X follows Xiomara who can relate to a variety of teenage topics such as starting your first period, bullying, and high school romance. Xiomara was raised in a ghetto community with a middle-income family. As immigrants who came to the U.S., Xiomara’s parents took up domestic jobs such as cleaning other people’s homes. This is a common occurrence for immigrant families who may not have the opportunity to pursue higher education.
Throughout the book, Xiomara constantly notes how being a female in her world has many repercussions, especially sexual ones. Oftentimes, she feels ashamed of being a woman with a body as no matter what she does, there is always attention from the opposite sex on her. As a result of this, she constantly attempts to fight these gender stereotypes by being a tomboy and fighting others with words and fists.
Xiomara brings up many familial issues. One such is that she feels shackled as a daughter to her parents, especially because she is unable to fit into gender norms. Her mother is a strict Catholic who strives to have Xiomara be the perfect religious daughter who is both devoted and filial. With high parental expectations, Xiomara feels that she is viewed differently from her brother, despite being the same age as him.
Why the Book Should be Read in Schools
As mentioned earlier, as a coming-of-age novel, The Poet X sparks creativity and empathy. Students are able to connect with Xiomara as she lives day-by-day battling her struggles as not just someone who is a female person of color, but a regular high school student trying to have her voice heard. The book also fights against stereotypes and highlights parts of Dominican culture.
Rating
Elizabeth Acevedo writes in a very captivating and energetic way that leads readers to turn pages. Each poem reflects a different aspect of Xiomara’s life, making it never dull to read and follow along on her wild adventures. Many of the themes Acevedo covers in her book are very relatable to tweens and teenagers. Moreover, I couldn’t help but feel empathetic for Xiomara and root for her through her hardships. The Poet X was an opener for the author Acevedo and I am definitely going to be reading more of her books in the future.
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