The Poet X

By: Elizabeth Acevedo
Location: FIC ACE
Genre: Slam Poetry  Coming of Age

"A story that will slam the power of poetry and love back into your heart!! Highly recommended!" Laurie


This was breathtaking. I literally felt like I had to read quicker to match the pace of the poetry because I was scared it would slip away from me.
Xiomara is a 15 year old girl just trying to get her shit together. She digests everything through poetry - it's a beautiful perspective on the world.
She questions everything, from boys, to church to bullshit creepy men hitting on a minor.
Read this book. It's beautiful- Katie

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.