The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Genre/Category
The Poet X is a realistic fiction and romance novel in verse. The category I am reviewing this book is for 7-12th Grade National Book Award Winner.
Target Age Group
The target age group for this novel is 13 and up as it contains mature themes such as sexual content, religious/family trauma, and some violence.
Summary
The Poet X follows Xiomara Batista, a 15-year-old who lives in Harlem with her mother, father, and twin brother, Xavier. Xiomara’s family, specifically her mother, is devoutly Catholic and disapproves of many aspects of Xiomara’s interests and behavior, such as slam poetry. In this novel, Xiomara battles religious trauma, body image issues, self-expression, family heartaches, and first love, all in an effort to understand herself and become closer to her love of poetry.
Justification
The Poet X is a multi-award-winning title that has garnered extensive attention and reviews since its publication in 2018. It has won the National Book award, Printz award, and Pura Belpre award. I have also heard about it due to Acevedo's fantastic role in narrating the audiobook. I also love poetry, so I was excited to give this novel a shot!
Audiobook Reading Experience
Normally, I am not a huge fan of audiobooks as I am a visual learner and find it difficult to follow along with the story if I am not reading it in my head in my own voice. However, I am glad that I chose to listen to the audiobook of The Poet X as it positively affected my experience with the book. I will discuss this further under the “narration” section, but overall, hearing the story in the author’s own voice brought the story to life and helped with my comprehension of the poems and Spanish text inclusion. As this is a novel in verse, Acevedo not only reads the poems but also performs them with rhythm, a great parallel to the protagonist and her love for slam poetry.
Evaluation
I have decided to limit my evaluation of The Poet X to audiobook narration, characterization, and figurative language.
Narration
Acevedo’s audiobook narration really brought the protagonist Xiomara to life. It felt as though Xiomara was telling her story directly. Additionally, Acevedo’s pronunciation of Spanish in a Dominican dialect emphasized the power of the words, an aspect that would missed simply reading the book without the narration. Lastly, Avecedo brought an appreciated rhythm to each poem. Naturally, poems are meant to be read aloud and for an audience to experience them that way. Acevedo brought a necessary rhythm, emotion, and power to each word such as these lines when Xiomara is describing how she feels about love interest Aman: “it’s real nice. / Real, real nice. / Blood on ice, ice / waiting for that warmth / that heat that fire” (Acevedo, 2018, p. 164). Overall, the narration greatly increased the drama and intensity of the novel.
Characterization
The characters in The Poet X are well rounded, especially the protagonist, Xiomara. As this is a novel in verse told from the perspective of the protagonist, the reader is let into her mind and all of her emotions, desires, and insecurities. When discussing how her body has garnered negative attention her whole life, we get poignant lines such as “I’ve forced my skin just as thick as I am” (p. 13) and “My body was a problem. / And I didn’t want any of these boys to be the one to solve it” (p. 130). With each poem we learn more about her trauma with religion and her relationship with her strict mother. We also learn about her relationship with her twin, Xavier and best friend Caridad. Most importantly, Xiomara undergoes a beautiful transformation of being shy and unsure of her poetry to standing out at open mics and performances. There are many journeys that Xiomara and her family go on in this novel that Acevedo explore to their full extent.
Figurative Language
The key difference between a novel and novel in verse is how poetically the narrative is told. Instead of sentences, Acevedo focused on line length, rhyme, rhythm, and figurative language to convey the narrative. The three figurative language moves Acevedo makes the most frequently are metaphor, anaphora, and line repetition. By the end of the novel, Acevedo presents a powerful metaphor that sums up both Xiomara’s relationship with religion via her mother and poetry: “There is power in the word” (p. 288). Poems such as “In Aman’s arms” present each poetic line beginning with the poem’s title followed by how Xiomara feels in relation to her love interest. Many poems make use of repeition of words such as “no” or “how” to reinforce a particular sentiment. Another interesting move that mimics the poems action with the shape of the words is when Mami is dragging Xiomara to the altar of the Virgin, and pushing her down on her knees to pray on grains of rice, while the words explaining this are also slanting and falling down the page. All of these examples provided are to say that Acevedo is methodical in her language in this novel, and it makes for a non-stop engaging piece.
Reference
Acevedo, E. (2020). The Poet X (E. Acevedo, Narr.) [Audiobook]. Quill Tree Books.