Book Discussion April 6, 2019: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

On Saturday April 6, we discussed The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo in honor of National Poetry Month. We took turns reading passages aloud during our discussion, experiencing the sounds of the poetry instead of just reading the works on paper. All of the excerpts of poems written below are the property of Elizabeth Acevedo.

 The Poet X was written for Young Adults and has won the 2018 National Book Award. One of the themes in the book is how mothers are so fearful about what might happen to their daughters (at the hands of men) they want to place their daughters in a box and not let them breathe.

Another theme is blatant sexual harassement of a 15 year old girl, sometimes by adult men.

Xiomara (pronounced See-oh-MAH-ra) lives in the Dominican community in Harlem and although she hates the attention she gets from men because of her fully developed body, she yearns to know how it feels to kiss a boy.

Last year we read another teen book written in prose:  Jason Reynold's Long Way Down

 and the year before sampled a little Latinx culture with Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea.

We began our discussion of The Poet X by noting the differences between the rough drafts of Xiomara’s school assignments and the Final Drafts: pp. 39-41, 126-127, 179-181, p. 244-248. We noticed that her rough drafts were written in verse about topics close to her heart, whereas the final drafts were written in essay form instead of verse, and the topics were facing outward rather than revealing her inner self. An example of this is on the assignment: Describe someone you consider misunderstood by society.

 In her rough draft, Xiomara wrote on page 179:

           …

When I was little

Mami was my hero.

But then I grew breasts

And although she was always extra hard on me,

Her attention became something else,

Like she wanted to turn me

Into the nun

She could never be.

Instead of that very personal (and heart-breaking) poem abbreviated above, Xiomara’s final draft was an essay about Nicki Minaj.

We talked a lot about the poem on page 48 called “How I feel about attention.” There were seven of us at the table and we all contributed to what we remember from High School about the myth of Medusa. We seemed to agree that the myth of Medusa as a great beauty that “stopped men in their tracks” was later morphed into a hideously ugly Medusa, a potential trophy in a would-be hero's quest to kill her.  We really couldn’t reach a consensus about the myth itself, but it was suggested that the man who “won” her in essence “killed” her.

How I Feel about Attention p.48

If Medusa was Dominican

And had a daughter, I think I’d be her.

I look and feel like a myth.

A story distorted, waiting for others to stop and stare.

                                   …

If Medusa

Was Dominican and had a daughter, she might

Wonder at this curse. At how her blood is always becoming some fake hero’s mission.

Something to be slayed, conquered.

If I was her kid, Medusa would tell me her secrets:

How it is that her looks stop men

In their tracks                  why they still keep on coming.

How she outmaneuvers them when they do.

  

After p.52

It happens when I’m at bodegas.

It happens when I’m at school.

It happens when I’m on the train.

                          …

I should be used to it.

I shouldn’t get so angry

When boys – and sometimes

Grown-ass men-

Talk to me however they want,

Think they can grab themselves

Or rub against me

Or makes all kinds of offers.

But I’m never used to it.

                           …

It simply never stops.

Okay? P.54

                           …

Doesn’t he know how tired I am?

How much I have to be so

Sharp tongued and heavy-handed?

                             …

We spent a great deal of time talking about Xiomara’s parents, especially her father. Martha pointed out that because he took so long to finally become a father, Papi became a great womanizer. This was his way of proving he was a real man.  Once his children were born, he no longer had anything to prove so he gave it up. Asadie disagreed. She contended that maybe he hadn’t really given up his womanizing ways, but maybe now he wasn’t as blatant. Laura pointed out that he no longer drank and no longer listened to music, perhaps he had really changed.

On Papi p. 65

         …

You can have a father who, if people asked,

You had to say lived with you.

You have to say is around.

But even as he brushes by you

On the way to the bathroom

He could be gone as anybody.

Just because your father’s present

Doesn’t mean he isn’t absent.

Xiomara’s portrayal of her mother gave us the most subject for discussion. Martha said that marrying her husband was a business deal. Asadie said the things Xiomara loved about her mother when she was a little girl are the things she hates about her mother now. We all tried to guess what it was that made her mother leave the island. 

We have to accept that Xiomara thinks that her mom left home because her parents basically sold her off to someone already in the United States. Maybe the family thought there would be better opportunities for her here. It couldn’t have been a case where the family no longer wanted to support her because she wanted to go into a convent, so the church would’ve supported her.

 Martha though, said “I think her mother had been involved in some kind of scandal at home and she had to leave, that’s why she’s so strict on her daughter, fearing Xiomara would make the same mistake. The last line of Mami’s poem on page 231 says “I don’t know if you’re more like your father”…then a line space…”or more like me.”

Carla told us we were “reaching” by coming to that conclusion and the sin that Mami referred to was the sin of getting married instead of joining the convent.

Before We Walk in the House p.231

"You Cannot turn your back on God.

I was on my journey to the convent,

Prepared to be his bride, when I married your father.

I think it was punishment

God allowed me America

But shackled me with a man addicted to women.

It was punishment,

To withhold children from me for so long

Until I questioned if anyone in this world would ever love me.

But even business deals are promises.

And we still married in a church.

And so I never walked away from him

Although I tried my best to get back

To my first love.

And confirmation is the last step I can give you.

But the child sins just like the parent.

Because look at you, choosing this over the sacred.

I don’t know if you’re more like your father,

Or more like me."

We ended our book discussion talking about Aman. I think that we kind of agreed that Aman could have been anyone. After all, Xiomara was the one who rubbed against his arm in biology lab, she was the one to first lean in to kiss, she was the one who suggested not going back into the school after the fire drill. I think most of us agreed that Aman provided a way to test herself: a way to examine these burgeoning sexual feelings against the backdrop of all the sexual harassment she suffered on the streets.

 Laura disagreed, she thought this was true love and even pointed out that Aman was a code name for the author’s partner she named in the Acknowledgments.  Reaching?