Still I rise: a "The Poet X" review
Although I've read books in verse and written my own poems, I'm not really into poetry. For some reason I'm just not as connected to it as I am with prose and song lyrics. I feel like a good poem needs to have emotional immediacy outside of imagery and clever metaphors, But with poetry's influx of broken sentence verse and all that was pushed onto me in school, I've become disinterested and detached. Authors have made careers off of this type of writing, though, and I need to keep digging until I find more poetry that sticks with me.
But I haven't seen much slam poetry. The kind of verse The Poet X focuses on is delivered in front of a live audience, raised voices and gestured punctuation and powerful, personal images. It's really awesome stuff from what I've watched, and to have a YA book written on the subject while in verse was a bold move. I knew I had to read sometime down the line. A road trip to and from a cousin's wedding presented itself, and my brother and I listened to the audiobook on those car rides, discovering it had won the National Book Award the year prior. Did we find award-winning material?
Yes we did. Elizabeth Acevedo's debut is a strong statement about finding your voice amidst a chaotic environment where you have none. Acevedo narrates her own book, and it's incredibly effective. Her poetry flows well, and the emotion and voice of main character Xiomara come through effectively without feeling forced into the verse format. Add onto that some compelling relationships and characters, a sweet romance, and some great verses, and this is the kind of powerful book that sits with you and won't let you go. Although I do have some minor complaints about how the relationship with Xiomara and her dad got resolved fairly easily when compared to her mother, The Poet X should be required reading, and I'm happy to have finally read this book and be on its cheerleading team.
Xiomara Batista feels trapped. Raised in a devout Catholic family with a helicopter mom, a distant father, and a supportive but silent twin brother, Xiomara has relied on her journal, a place where she writes her thoughts down in verse. But she's sick of questioning where she stands, oppressed in a church pew discretely spitting out wafers every Sunday and wondering about why Eve was the one to blame come conformation class Tuesday. She wants to be able to express herself, fall in love on her own terms, much to the baffled support from her closest friend Caridad. Sophomore year rolls around, and she finds two places to be her true self: the classmate sitting next to her in Bio, Aman, and a slam poetry club offered by her English teacher. But the confirmation class stands in the way of being part of that club, and her mom's views on relationships and what a girl stands for conflict the freedom Xiomara wants to experience. She spends time with Aman at the park, buried beneath the music filtering through the earbuds and the poems rattling inside her. Will she gain the courage to let those poems free, perform them in the slam that she aspires to do once she learns of it? Or will the very environment that has raised her strip her of her power?
I cannot tell you how gripping this premise is, and Acevedo delivers on it within the novel itself. The poems are the stepping stones to each piece of Xiomara's story. I like the form experimentation within them. Although most are free verse, a few poems follow particular formats that end up working really well because the reader can interpret them however they wish. Complete with beautiful figurative language, realistic flow, and nice continuity between the titles and the text, it all comes together. It also leads to a great poetry slam competition!
It also helps that Xiomara's story is just as invigorating as the poetry. Although The Poet X is a coming-of-age narrative, it goes beyond that. It utilizes friendship and romance well in a way YA contemporaries tend to overlook. Caridad always has Xiomara's back no matter the occasion, even though she believes in God more than Xiomara does, and Aman is a sweet and supportive love interest that respects Xiomara's boundaries and strives to be the best for her. Sure, parts of the main conflict between Xiomara and her mom are fueled by Aman, but it doesn't feel shoe-horned in. His dissolution from the plot is fueled by Mrs. Batista's intense fear and love for her daughter covered by shaming her for the body God gave her (and her own past, mired by an arranged marriage with her husband that took her away from what she wanted to do) and a moment where Aman messes up. It's organic and complimented upon by several developments throughout the book: Father Sean revealing outer layers aside from dissuasion, Ms. Galiano becoming a figure of support, and Xiomara's twin brother, Xavier, pushing his sister alongside a reveal of his own, to name a few. The only one we don't see much of here, and perhaps the greatest weakness of this novel, is Xiomara's dad, a mostly absent figure who seems like he's ignoring the world around him. His re-connection back into the story at the end was fast and didn't feel right with all that he missed, but considering that the rest of the cast got great development, I can forgive it some.
And that's pretty much it. This may be a short review, but there's only one message I have for you: read The Poet X. It won the National Book Award for a reason. It's a strong literary piece that tells its bildungsroman story in a way that may be unseen by common prose, incorporating poetry and a strong voice into the mix. Elizabeth Acevedo's debut crackles with life and emotion, translating teenage romance, rebellion, and discovery into a whirlwind of a narrative that rings home. Xiomara Batista finds her voice and discovers more about who she is over the course of half a year in New York, and the results are glorious to follow.