Please respond to anything that interested you in Poet X. Here are some prompts to get you started thinking:
- Discuss Xiomara’s physical body–how does she feel about her physicality at the beginning of the book and how does this change as we progress?
- Talk about this line in the book, from the poem “How I Feel about Attention” (p. 48): “I look and feel like a myth.”
- Discuss how Xiomara’s ties to her own Dominican-American culture are complicated. Yes, she chafes at church and under her mother’s control and her father’s neglect, but do you think she also draws strength and inspiration from her culture?
- Discuss the role of a secondary character such as Twin or Aman or Father Sean.
- For those of you who may be poetry-lovers, talk a little bit about form in the book. Why choose poetry rather than prose narrative to tell Xiomara’s story? Were there any particular poetic forms or allusions you noticed? Maybe discuss these in a bit more detail. How do you think form affects function in this book?
Discuss Xiomara’s physical body–how does she feel about her physicality at the beginning of the book and how does this change as we progress?
The first time we see Xiomara’s feelings on her own body, she describes it as “un-hideable,” tall and thick-skinned and too-often sexualized by others even as a young girl. Her strong-willed personality seems to match her own descriptions of her body. At another place near the beginning of the book Xiomara calls her body an “Amazon frame,” again matching with an intangible aspect of herself— her name, which means warrior. In all respects she seems to be a strong and large person, but the book continually shows us that she shrinks in on herself during times of stress or shame, mentally and physically. “…At the same time that I wish / my body could fold into the tiniest corner / for me to hide in.” I’d argue though that Xiomara isn’t ashamed of her body or her personality, she makes comments such as “Mami… / Gave me this gift of battle and now curses / how well I live up to it,” “But I ignore their taunts.” She is definitely uncomfortable with the pressures of her family and her church, but as for how she sees her body and her personality when she’s alone, I read her as confident and self assured— she’s just bothered that others’ opinions on her autonomy don’t align with hers. Xiomara does shrink in on herself, but I noticed that she never seems to direct anger or shame or anxiety directly toward her body the way that she does toward other people, to stage fright, to the church. She’s certainly under pressure from the outside forces telling her how a woman and her body should look and act, but the descriptions such as “I try to make all the big/ of me small, small small” are typically in reference to an emotional issue, not physical insecurities.
Even though I don’t believe Xiomara’s struggles center around physical insecurity, she does seem to gain power through her body and her voice toward the end of the book. I saw this not as a lack of confidence and a gradual increase, but rather that she has been self-assured all along and in a few quick moments toward the end decided to express that confidence to everyone else, rather than playing by the rules. Mami tells her, “‘Speak up, Xiomara,’” and she realizes that through the liberation of her body and her voice, she can harness “the power in the word.” And, in terms of relationships, when reconciling (somewhat) with Mami, Xiomara states, “But our arms can do / what our words can’t just now. / Our arms can reach. / Can hug tight.” Along with the power of words through the body, she seems to realize the power the physical body has in terms of bonding and healing.
Elizabeth Acevedo’s book is a masterful lesson in invoking emotion in the reader. I had previously bookmarked the poem “How I Feel about Attention” because of the way Xiomara’s teenage thoughts reminisced my own. Her language conveys both beauty and pain in a bittersweet measure of words. The line “I look and feel like a myth” demonstrates Xiomara’s self-awareness. She knows that the world outside of her finds her attractive similar to an exotic fruit eagerly waiting to be consumed by hungry men. She also feels her own emotional depth is not desired by those same people. She is a myth because the consumption strangers try to take of her is avoidant of her full essence relying solely on their egotism to satisfy their selfish desires. However, rereading the poem also brought to mind the way Xiomara feels about attention from adults she is connected to as well. The intentional use of the word myth in this line connects the idea of narrative with a later line using the word “distortion”. She is living her own story while the world concocts ideas of who they think she is or who they want her to be. Her mother wants her to be a more stereotypical Church girl while her teacher wants her to actualize her potential yet no one is looking Xiomara in the eye to ask her who she wants to be or how they can best support her journey.