A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.
But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.
So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.
Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
Flo's Review
This book spoke to me on many levels. Mostly, as a poet. It has been awhile since I've done so, but I used to write a good deal of poetry. Xiomara's story took me back to the summer between high school and college, when I finally felt confident enough to actually share my words for the first time. It was slam poetry, but I did read a poem aloud. So as I was reading about The Poet X, the Poet Flo was relating.
I love poetry because of the beauty in the assembly of words. With a poem, you can have no idle ones -- every word counts. And when you read them aloud, how they come together, the rhythm they make, counts too. This is an entire book of verse and I was here for it for 100%.
Especially the audiobook! The audiobook is read by Elizabeth Avecedo, so I really felt like I was hearing things the way she heard them when she first wrote them down. Want to see what I mean? Elizabeth Acevedo came to my favorite local bookstore Books & Books and I snagged this video of her reading from The Poet X. Enjoy!
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