“The Poet X” by Elizabeth Acevedo

“Sometimes it seems like writing is the only way I keep from hurting.”

In Acevedo’s coming-of-age novel, Xiomara Batiste (nicknamed X) experiences the universal struggle of selfhood, learning who she is amidst the pressure of who her parents want her to be. X finds solace in her brother Xavier, whom she calls Twin, and her school friends. Her mother (Mami) espouses her faith, insisting X attend confirmation class and lean into Catholicism for guidance. But X struggles to digest the patriarchal ideology inherent in the religion and soon ditches confirmation class for dates with her love interest Aman. 

In addition to the mental pressure, X is contending with her physical changes, as the boys make snide remarks about her shapely figure that she can’t conceal in layers of clothes. She experiences the stirrings of desire, compounded by the expectations of chastity and purity. Like any teenager, she wants to take risks without suffering lifelong ramifications; she wants to feel Aman’s body against hers without his losing respect for her. Her inner life and outer life are consistently in conflict, and X finds escape in writing prompts for Ms. Galiano’s English class. When X’s troubled thoughts are etched on paper, the inner turmoil becomes a public struggle, one that will expedite the maturation she so desperately seeks. X writes, “Just because your father’s present, doesn’t mean he isn’t absent…sometimes it feels like writing is the only way I keep from hurting.”

In Acevedo’s depiction of a modern Dominican-American family through the perspective of a budding teenager, the author interrogates familial pressure, longing, desire, and misogyny. Though written in verse and tailored to a young adult audience, I gobbled this novel up, luxuriating in its relaxing language and complex themes, resonating for this reader long past her adolescence. Acevedo captures the young woman’s struggle of becoming beautifully, channeling her unexpressed emotion into each composed verse. Acevedo reminds us of the balming nature of writing and of the youthful impulse to express oneself. 

Elizabeth Acevedo was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in 2022. In addition to being a New York Times bestseller, The Poet X received the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal. Acevedo lives in Washington D.C. and works with incarcerated women and teenagers. 

“The world is almost peaceful when you stop trying to understand it.”