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Part 1 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “in the beginning was the word”, part 1, chapter 1 summary: “friday, august 24-sunday, september 16”.

In the first poem of the novel, Xiomara describes her neighborhood in Harlem as she reflects on the end of the summer. From her seat on her stoop, she sees “the old church ladies, chancletas flapping” (3), and listens to “honking cabs with bachata blaring / from their open windows” (3) as a group of drug dealers watch “girls in summer dresses and short shorts” (4). She goes inside when she knows it’s nearly time for her mother to be home from work. Xiomara reflects on her appearance, her mother’s warnings about boys, and her name, which means “[o]ne who is ready for war” (7). According to Xiomara, her mother found her birth difficult, unlike the birth of her twin brother, Xavier, so an unusual name that “labors out of some people’s mouths” (7) feels appropriate to her.

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Source: Poetry (February 1970)

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The surprising connections between maths and poetry.

From the Fibonacci sequence to the Bell numbers, there is more overlap between mathematics and poetry than you might think, says Peter Rowlett , who has found his inner poet

By Peter Rowlett

7 August 2024

Bill Kotsatos/Polaris/eyevine​

People like to position maths as cold, hard logic, quite distinct from creative pursuits. Actually, maths often involves a great deal of creativity. As mathematician Sofya Kovalevskaya wrote, “It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul.” Poetry is often constrained by rules, and these add to, rather than detract from, its creativity.

Rhyming poems generally follow a scheme formed by giving each line a letter, so that lines with matching letters rhyme. This verse from a poem by A. A. Milne uses an ABAB scheme:

What shall I call My dear little dormouse? His eyes…

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Book excerpt: "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin

Updated on: August 11, 2024 / 9:34 AM EDT / CBS News

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Writer, poet and activist James Baldwin (1924-1987) was one of the leading literary voices of the civil rights movement. Through a powerful oeuvre of novels, plays and essays, he explored issues of race, class, politics and sexual identity during one of America's most turbulent periods.

Baldwin's essay "My Dungeon Shook," written in the form of a letter to his young nephew, was first published in The Progressive in 1962; the following year a revised version was included in "The Fire Next Time"  (now included in a new collection from Everyman's Library). The letter is a powerful treatise on the state of racism in America - how it affects Black people whose very dignity is circumscribed by social constructs, as well as whites undermined by their lack of understanding and their feelings of fear. It richly illustrates the ironies of how race relations can dampen the humanity of all involved.

Read the essay below, and don't miss Kelefa Sanneh's report on the centenary of James Baldwin on "CBS Sunday Morning" August 11!

"The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name; No Name in the Street; The Devil Finds Work" by James Baldwin

"My Dungeon Shook"

Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation

Dear James:

I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times. I keep seeing your face, which is also the face of your father and my brother. Like him, you are tough, dark, vulnerable, moody—with a very definite tendency to sound truculent because you want no one to think you are soft. You may be like your grandfather in this, I don't know, but certainly both you and your father resemble him very much physically. Well, he is dead, he never saw you, and he had a terrible life; he was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he really believed what white people said about him. This is one of the reasons that he became so holy. I am sure that your father has told you something about all that. Neither you nor your father exhibit any tendency towards holiness: you really are of another era, part of what happened when the Negro left the land and came into what the late E. Franklin Frazier called "the cities of destruction." You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a n----- . I tell you this because I love you, and please don't you ever forget it.

I have known both of you all your lives, have carried your Daddy in my arms and on my shoulders, kissed and spanked him and watched him learn to walk. I don't know if you've known anybody from that far back; if you've loved anybody that long, first as an infant, then as a child, then as a man, you gain a strange perspective on time and human pain and effort. Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father's face, for behind your father's face as it is today are all those other faces which were his. Let him laugh and I see a cellar your father does not remember and a house he does not remember and I hear in his present laughter his laughter as a child. Let him curse and I remember him falling down the cellar steps, and howling, and I remember, with pain, his tears, which my hand or your grandmother's so easily wiped away. But no one's hand can wipe away those tears he sheds invisibly today, which one hears in his laughter and in his speech and in his songs. I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed one must strive to become, tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. (But remember: most of mankind is not all of mankind.) But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.

Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well-meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not very far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens in the London of more than a hundred years ago. (I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, "No! This is not true! How bitter you are!"—but I am writing this letter to you, to try to tell you something about how to handle them , for most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions under which you were born, for I was there. Your countrymen were not there, and haven't made it yet. Your grandmother was also there, and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocents check with her. She isn't hard to find. Your countrymen don't know that she exists, either, though she has been working for them all their lives.)

Well, you were born, here you came, something like fifteen years ago; and though your father and mother and grandmother, looking about the streets through which they were carrying you, staring at the walls into which they brought you, had every reason to be heavyhearted, yet they were not. For here you were, Big James, named for me—you were a big baby, I was not—here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world. Remember that: I know how black it looks today, for you. It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived. And now you must survive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children's children.

This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason . The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry. I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying, "You exaggerate." They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one's word for anything, including mine—but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them . And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don't be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man's definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers—your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off.

You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you, James, and Godspeed.

Your uncle, James

       From "The First Next Time" by James Baldwin. Reprinted by arrangement with Modern Library, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 1962, 1963 by James Baldwin. Copyright renewed 1990, 1991 by Gloria Baldwin Karefa-Smart. 

Get the book here:

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For more info:

• "The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name; No Name in the Street; The Devil Finds Work" by James Baldwin (Everyman's Library), in Hardcover, available via Amazon , Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
• JamesBaldwinBooks.com (Penguin Random House)

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Taylor swift ends kanye west's no. 1 streak on billboard chart, taylor swift karma is beatin' ye on the charts ... destroys his no. 1 streak.

Kanye West took a big L at the hands of someone he's had beef with for years -- one Taylor Swift !

Kanye's streak of 11 consecutive No. 1 albums was just broken, because "Vultures 2" fell short of the top spot by 1 ... and that 1 belongs to TS' "The Tortured Poets Department."

Taylor must be reveling in her latest win. Kanye's been a thorn in her side ever since 2009, when he hijacked her moment at the MTV Video Music Awards, telling the world Beyoncé was robbed and should have taken home the prize.

And then there's the whole "I made that bitch famous" mess, where Kanye and Kim secretly recorded her and edited the tape to make it appear she had given her permission for Ye to use the lyric. She did not, and that was proven beyond a reasonable doubt after the unedited version of the convo surfaced.

Taylor took a lot of crap for that, so this has got to be sweet revenge.

Maybe Taylor will rework her song, "Karma" ... just sayin'.

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City of Lawrence begins search for next Transit Poet Laureate

LAWRENCE, Kan. (KCTV) - The City of Lawrence is searching for its next Transit Poet Laureate with a Ride and Write Workshop set to help the creative juices flow.

Officials from Lawrence Transit have announced they are set to ride and write to a local brewery to awaken the senses and creative spirit of the community with its second annual Poet Laureate Program and Summer Ride and Write Workshop.

On Friday, Aug. 30, those who register will meet in the lobby of Central Station to join transit officials and poet/professor Megan Kaminski as they kick off the program’s second year. Registration is capped at 25 attendees, so those interested should act quickly.

Riders will travel through Lawrence on Route 8 in one of the city’s new electric buses. They will find inspiration together in the sights, sounds and connections made as they traverse the city to Fields & Ivy. Once at the brewery, guests will be guided by prompts to help them see themselves and everyday life through fresh eyes.

Officials noted that riders will write together and have the chance to share their words. Participants will also leave with a poem and prompts to inspire them in their ongoing writing endeavors as well as an invitation to submit poems for the Lawrence Transit Poet Laureate program.

For the 2024 program, officials have encouraged writers to submit poems around themes of community, transportation and home. Everyone has been welcomed to honor the movements, places and feelings that tell the stories of their days.

“Poetry doesn’t just live in books or in quiet rooms—it lives and breathes with us as we travel through our day,” said Kaminski. “By writing and sharing our words, we connect to each other, to ourselves, and to our larger communities. I’m excited to collaborate with Lawrence Transit to make space for the beauty and poetry in our everyday lives.”

The program offers the opportunity for local poets of any age to be featured on Lawrence Transit electric buses.

To register, click email [email protected] . To be considered as a Transit Poet Laureate, click HERE .

Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.

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Meet Prompt Poet: The Google-acquired tool revolutionizing LLM prompt engineering

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In the age of artificial intelligence, prompt engineering is an important new skill for harnessing the full potential of large language models (LLMs). This is the art of crafting complex inputs to extract relevant, useful outputs from AI models like ChatGPT. While many LLMs are designed to be friendly to non-technical users, and respond well to natural-sounding conversational prompts, advanced prompt engineering techniques offer another powerful level of control. These techniques are useful for individual users, and absolutely essential for developers seeking to build sophisticated AI-powered applications.

The Game-Changer: Prompt Poet

Prompt Poet is a groundbreaking tool developed by Character.ai , a platform and makerspace for personalized conversational AIs, which was recently acquired by Google . Prompt Poet potentially offers a look at the future direction of prompt context management across Google’s AI projects, such as Gemini.

Prompt Poet offers several key advantages, and stands out from other frameworks such as Langchain in its simplicity and focus:

• Low Code Approach : Simplifies prompt design for both technical and non-technical users, unlike more code-intensive frameworks​.
• Template Flexibility : Uses YAML and Jinja2 to support complex prompt structures.
• Context Management : Seamlessly integrates external data, offering a more dynamic and data-rich prompt creation process.
• Efficiency : Reduces time spent on engineering string manipulations, allowing users to focus on crafting optimal prompt text.

This article focuses on the critical concept of context in prompt engineering, specifically the components of instructions and data. We’ll explore how Prompt Poet can streamline the creation of dynamic, data-rich prompts, enhancing the effectiveness of your LLM applications.

The Importance of Context: Instructions and Data

Customizing an LLM application often involves giving it detailed instructions about how to behave. This might mean defining a personality type, a specific situation, or even emulating a historical figure. For instance:

Customizing an LLM application, such as a chatbot, often means giving it specific instructions about how to act. This might mean describing a certain type of personality type, situation, or role, or even a specific historical or fictional person. For example, when asking for help with a moral dilemma, you can ask the model to answer in the style of someone specific, which will very much influence the type of answer you get. Try variations of the following prompt to see how the details (like the people you pick) matter:

Details matter. Effective prompt engineering also involves creating a specific, customized data context. This means providing the model with relevant facts, like personal user data, real-time information or specialized knowledge, which it wouldn’t have access to otherwise. This approach allows the AI to produce output far more relevant to the user’s specific situation than would be possible for an uninformed generic model.

Efficient Data Management with Prompt Templating

Data can be loaded in manually, just by typing it into ChatGPT. If you ask for advice about how to install some software, you have to tell it about your hardware. If you ask for help crafting the perfect resume, you have to tell it your skills and work history first. However, while this is ok for personal use, it does not work for development. Even for personal use, manually inputting data for each interaction can be tedious and error-prone.

This is where prompt templating comes into play. Prompt Poet uses YAML and Jinja2 to create flexible and dynamic prompts, significantly enhancing LLM interactions.

Example: Daily Planner

To illustrate the power of Prompt Poet, let’s work through a simple example: a daily planning assistant that will remind the user of upcoming events and provide contextual information to help prepare for their day, based on real-time data.

For example, you might want output like this:

To do that, we’ll need to provide at least two different pieces of context to the model, 1) customized instructions about the task, and 2) the required data to define the factual context of the user interaction.

Prompt Poet gives us some powerful tools for handling this context. We’ll start by creating a template to hold the general form of the instructions, and filling it in with specific data at the time when we want to run the query. For the above example, we might use the following Python code to create a `raw_template` and the `template_data` to fill it, which are the components of a Prompt Poet `Prompt` object.

The code below uses Prompt Poet’s `Prompt` class to populate data from multiple data sources into a template to form a single, coherent prompt. This allows us to invoke a daily planning assistant to provide personalized, context-aware responses. By pulling in weather data, traffic updates, AQI information and calendar events, the model can offer detailed summaries and reminders, enhancing the user experience.

You can clone and experiment with the full working code example , which also implements few-shot learning, a powerful prompt engineering technique that involves presenting the models with a small set of training examples.

Mastering the fundamentals of prompt engineering, particularly the roles of instructions and data, is crucial for maximizing the potential of LLMs. Prompt Poet stands out as a powerful tool in this field, offering a streamlined approach to creating dynamic, data-rich prompts.

Prompt Poet’s low-code, flexible template system makes prompt design accessible and efficient. By integrating external data sources that would not be available to an LLM’s training, data-filled prompt templates can better ensure AI responses are accurate and relevant to the user.

By using tools like Prompt Poet, you can elevate your prompt engineering skills and develop innovative AI applications that meet diverse user needs with precision. As AI continues to evolve, staying proficient in the latest prompt engineering techniques will be essential.

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The Poet X follows 15-year-old Xiomara , a second-generation Dominican American living in Harlem. In part because of Xiomara’s upbringing in the Catholic Church and in part because of her family’s Dominican traditions, Xiomara’s sexual coming of age is something that she, as a curious and questioning teen, can’t ignore—but it’s something that disturbs her mother, Mami , and that Mami tries her hardest to squash. As Xiomara begins a romantic relationship with her lab partner, Aman , she must therefore try to reconcile what she hears about sex at home with her own desire for a physical relationship. Her family’s shame only makes Xiomara feel even more alone in the world; by comparing how she’s expected to behave with how her father, Papi , is allowed to behave, Xiomara recognizes that as a young woman, she can’t win. The novel thus makes it clear that shame, especially when it comes to one’s sexuality, encourages double standards and causes people to feel needlessly anxious, guilty, and insecure.

Since beginning to develop physically at age 11, Xiomara has had a difficult relationship with her body. She writes that her body seemed to develop out of nowhere and now, at age 15, Xiomara is taller than lots of boys and very curvy. While this is something that plenty of young women go through during puberty, Xiomara isn’t given any of the tools or the knowledge to understand her body—or, for that matter, to celebrate it. Instead, Xiomara wants to make herself small so that she can ignore the parts of her body that attract attention, and at home, Mami makes it very to clear to Xiomara that with a woman’s body, it is Xiomara’s responsibility to minimize her body’s importance and protect herself from unwanted advances. The one major event that solidified Xiomara’s belief that she needs to minimize her body came when she started menstruating. Xiomara knew that the “time of the month” was something that women experienced, but she had no idea what that meant and thus wasn’t prepared to deal with her own period. Then, when Xiomara purchased tampons and asked Mami for help about how to insert them properly, Mami slapped her and accused her of being sexually promiscuous. This event made Xiomara feel extremely ashamed of her body, thanks to the combination of not knowing what was happening and then being completely blindsided by Mami’s reaction when she did figure it out. This incident reflects Mami’s belief that Xiomara’s growing body, and later Xiomara’s budding sexuality, is something to be controlled by Mami, not by Xiomara herself.

In addition to being made to feel as though she has no agency over her body or sexuality, Xiomara is told again and again that when men catcall her, it’s her fault and she needs to stop it. However, Xiomara recognizes that men speak crudely to her regardless of what she’s wearing, saying, or doing. Especially considering how Xiomara sees that men—especially her own father, Papi—are treated and spoken about in terms of their sexuality, Xiomara is reminded constantly that she and other women have little say over what happens to their bodies. In his younger years—that is, before Xiomara and Twin were born—Papi was a known philanderer who drank in bars, slept with many women, and inappropriately touched others. Yet Xiomara recognizes that Mami scolds and punishes her for not being able to deflect the advances of the next generation of men like Papi. In effect, Mami excuses the actions of men like Papi and the drug dealers who catcall Xiomara to instead pin the blame on these men’s female targets.

Xiomara encapsulates her understanding of this double standard when she explains the word cuero , which is the Dominican slang term for a promiscuous woman. She notes that the term can be applied to quite literally any woman who, for any reason or no reason, seems inappropriately sexual. No such term exists for men, even if there’s clear evidence of sexual activity or desire. Through this term, Xiomara is further conditioned to believe that female sexuality isn’t okay under any circumstances, while male sexuality is something that’s not only acceptable, but even celebrated.

All of this becomes extremely difficult for Xiomara to make sense of when she begins to spend time with her lab partner, Aman, and finds herself wanting to experiment sexually with him. Because of what Xiomara has been told at home about kissing and sex, she wonders if even being curious is a horrible crime, and this makes her feel even more conflicted about her relationship with Aman. Because of the shame that Xiomara feels about her body and her desire to experiment, she struggles to genuinely enjoy things with Aman, especially after the fact. With this, the novel shows clearly how shame can rob individuals of pleasure. However, Xiomara also writes that Aman makes her body, which she usually feels is too big and too sexy no matter what she does, feel good and like something she should be proud of. This realization, combined with Xiomara’s questioning of why kissing, masturbating, and other sexual contact is so bad if it feels good, ultimately leads her to begin rejecting Mami’s teachings about sex and bodies. By questioning the shameful attitudes towards sex that she has been taught, Xiomara is able to begin putting together her own understanding of how to conduct herself in a sexual relationship.

Importantly, once Xiomara begins to shrug off some of the shame that she connects to her body and her sexuality (and after Mami burns her poetry notebook , which destroys Xiomara’s trust in Mami and her beliefs), Xiomara begins to feel more confident in a number of other ways. She even agrees to open up a conversation with Mami about their relationship. Though the novel ties Xiomara’s shame most clearly to sex, it also suggests that shame about anything can make a person less confident overall. On the other hand, developing confidence, self-respect, and the courage to make one’s own decisions gives a person the tools to let go of their shame, and in turn lead a happier and less anxious life.

Sexuality and Shame ThemeTracker

Sexuality and Shame Quotes in The Poet X

The other girls call me conceited. Ho. Thot. Fast. When your body takes up more room than your voice you are always the target of well-aimed rumors, which is why I let my knuckles talk for me. Which is why I learned to shrug when my name was replaced by insults.

And I get all this attention from guys but it’s like a sancocho of emotions.

This stew of mixed-up ingredients: partly flattered they think I’m attractive, partly scared they’re only interested in my ass and boobs, and a good measure of Mami-will-kill-me fear sprinkled on top.

What if I like a boy too much and none of those things happen... they’re the only scales I have.

How does a girl like me figure out the weight of what it means to love a boy?

“Good girls don’t wear tampones. Are you still a virgin? Are you having relations?”

I didn’t know how to answer her, I could only cry. She shook her head and told me to skip church that day. Threw away the box of tampons, saying they were for cueros. That she would buy me pads. Said eleven was too young. That she would pray on my behalf.

I didn’t understand what she was saying. But I stopped crying. I licked at my split lip. I prayed for the bleeding to stop.

And I knew then what I’d known since my period came: my body was trouble. I had to pray the trouble out of the body God gave me. My body was a problem. And I didn’t want any of these boys to be the ones to solve it. I wanted to forget I had this body at all.

He grins at me and shrugs. “I came here and practiced a lot. My pops never wanted to put me in classes. Said it was too soft.”

And now his smile is a little sad. And I think about all the things we could be if we were never told our bodies were not built for them.

I don’t yell how the whole block whispers when I walk down the street about all the women who made a cuero out of him.

But men are never called cueros.

I’ll be anything that makes sense of this panic. I’ll loosen myself from this painful flesh.

See, a cuero is any skin. A cuero is just a covering. A cuero is a loose thing. Tied down by no one. Fluttering and waving in the wind. Flying. Flying. Gone.

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by Elizabeth Acevedo

The poet x themes, taking ownership of self.

The process of maturing through adolescence is inevitably intertwined with the idea of taking ownership of oneself. In Xiomara 's case this process is compounded by having parents—a mother in particular—who are very strict, religious, and old-fashioned. She wants to be, and finds herself for a time, in a society which affirms and supports her individuality and empowers her femininity, rather than restricting it. In the most defiant and bold act of her young adult life Xiomara refuses to ask for forgiveness because she feels no shame for having pursued Aman or her poetry. As she takes charge of her own life, she feels less and less need to follow her parents' Catholicism. She does not reject the religion, but Xiomara makes her decisions according to her own value system and her own conscience.

Practicing Vulnerability

As a teenage girl, Xiomara is prone to emotional angst. Developmentally speaking, high school kids are learning to process their radically shifting emotions, often on their own, in high-pressure situations. Xiomara responds to this challenge with an incredible amount of maturity. Through poetry club and her budding friendships, she learns to express her feelings within a constructive framework. She intentionally cultivates vulnerability. This is why she is so outraged and crushed when her mother finds her poetry and destroy it. For Xiomara, these poems are a part of herself, one which her parents are readily rejecting because they believe they can simply throw it away and be done with it. If Xiomara cannot just destroy her feelings and experiences, then she must learn to accept them somehow, even without the support of her parents. Although this sort of transformation is often typified in literature and popular culture as melodrama or awkwardness, it is an important life stage which Xiomara navigates with a surprising amount of skill.

Rejecting Sexism

Much of Xiomara's conflict with her parents revolves around sexism. Because she has her twin brother, Xavier , with whom to compare, she is especially conscious of how her parents treat her differently because she's a girl. Not only do they impose different, stricter rules upon her, they also encourage certain behaviors in their son which they forbid for Xiomara. For instance, she is not allowed to pursue any sort of romantic relationship, but Xavier has no such restriction. When Xiomara kisses Aman, she is dragged into church and told to confess to the priest. This moment represents a pinnacle in her personal development because Xiomara is being asked to make a profession of values, and she chooses her own instead of her parents'. She refuses to confess because she rejects the idea that she has made a mistake in kissing Aman.

Art as Liberation

Throughout the novel Xiomara struggles with her mother's repressiveness, her changing body and relationship with boys, her religious doubts, and much more, but the one constant is that for her, art is liberation, catharsis. She is constantly writing, as writing is the only way she can truly get her voice out there into the world (initially it is a private endeavor, but eventually she does start to perform for others). Her writing is what sustains her and keeps her sane and grounded; it helps her understand who she is and what she wants. Acevedo uses her novel not just to tell the story of a vibrant young woman but to make the case that art is a powerful release and palliative.

Immigrants and their Children

Mami and Papi are from the Dominican Republic and retain some of their culture and customs from that country, while their children are born in the United States and almost fully embrace that country's way of life. This is an age-old story—the immigrants who are the first to arrive struggle to find their way in their new home and their children who are born here do not understand why their parents are so old-fashioned or different or unwilling to assimilate into the new country. Combined with Mami's religiosity, this situation proves to be very difficult for young Xiomara as she struggles to define herself.

Religion is not necessarily a positive part of Xiomara's life. Her mother's Catholicism manifests itself as an extremely strict, judgemental, and repressive religion. Xiomara struggles with whether or not she even believes the Bible's stories, but also with the way the Bible and its adherents treat women. She feels like Jesus is a friend she no longer wants to talk to anymore, that confirmation class is a waste of time, and that the things she is told are wrong with her are simply normal aspects of being a human being. Acevedo does not totally condemn religion, showing Father Sean as a kind and supportive person and some of the Bible's teachings as uplifting and nurturing, but she does give the reader a lot to ponder in terms of how human beings wield religion to make life difficult for others.

Xiomara and Xavier are twins, but their relationship isn't always the stuff of twin-legend. Xiomara often wishes Twin understood her better, that they had deeper twin intuition, that he would stand up for her when she was suffering, that he would simply notice her more. This isn't to say that there are not moments in the text when there is something that passes between them, and they definitely love and support each other, but Xiomara often feels adrift even though she is supposed to have this person who understands her on a deeper level. Part of this can be attributed to their differing genders and the way they are treated—Xavier is favored by his parents, has to do less work, does not get in trouble and escapes the constant monitoring Xiomara receives. As the novel progresses, Xiomara comes to terms with the fact that she cannot turn solely to Twin for succor and sympathy.

The Poet X Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Poet X is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Which of the following quotes most clearly shows the author's attitude about church?

Are you providing the quotes?

What are 6 important events in order?

Are you asking for bullet points for one particular poem, or for bullet points using the collection?

poet x ''poem Ms.Galiano''

Sorry, what is acevedo?

Study Guide for The Poet X

The Poet X study guide contains a biography of Acevado, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Poet X
• The Poet X Summary
• Character List

Essays for The Poet X

The Poet X essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Poet X by Acevado.

• Discovering Self Worth through Spoken Word in "The Poet X"
• Elizabeth Acevedo’s Ode to Adolescent Power: Culture, Conflict, and Reassurance in The Poet X

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