Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Length: 384 pages
Audiobook Length: 3 hours and 30 minutes
First Published: 2018
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Publisher’s Description
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. But she still 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.
Quotes from The Poet X
And I think about all the things we could be
if we were never told our bodies were not built for them.
Just because your father’s present, doesn’t mean he isn’t absent.
Their gazes and words
are heavy with all the things
they want you to be.
One thing I know for sure is that reputations last longer than the time it takes to make them.
About Elizabeth Acevedo
Elizabeth Acevedo is the author of three bestselling young adult novels, The Poet X, Clap When You Land, Family Lore, and With the Fire on High. She is also a National Poetry Slam Champion. Born in New York to Dominican immigrants, she currently lives in Washington, DC. Visit the author’s website →
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