As soon as I read Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X, I knew there was a brilliant poetic voice illuminating the future. Acevedo is a performance poet whose beautiful free verse crosses over for both adult and teen readers. The Poet X is a verse novel with so much rhythm that it could be performed as musical theater. The story is both sensitive and energetic, emotionally complex and accessible.
We were like two roots in soil suspended blessings that would grow
on trees.
Even when told their veins do grow and dates aplenty, vacant is our fruit.
Spoiled was a root with the jealousy of time what is it that keeps time from
deteriorating?
Waiting for a Boat from Governor's Island
Holding hands with a guardrail
We dance watching moss and vines
Tackle empty buildings in the distance.
Vacancy helps me understand
What was lost and what we’ve found.
This space is a landmine of
Silence no longer submerged.
I grab some crab tacos
While the boat arrives in five minutes.
Spring Cleaning
Now that you are not here, I don’t know what to do
with everything that was once yours. I start with the objects:
the photographs, the notebook, the book
that weighs just as much as you weighed
when you’d hang on my arm.
The clothes: your trousers,
the shirt that you gave me and is now the memory
of absence. I continue: the thoughts that build up
in the most remote corners of the body:
I am dreaming that clothes are coming apart. There is a sudden need for needles and thread. There are buttons on the floor like seashells. We try to make the outdoors in our living rooms. I have a measuring tape around my neck. I have a single pin between my teeth. The outside comes in. I brace myself like for a wave.
For Dana Bradley, survivor of the Oklahoma City bombing
Place the Stories Stop
(for two voices)
there was that
you that came before
you came after
here
a word unheard at birth
saying before saying
snow all over is earth
earth is snow all over
Spooks (poem lined with double agents)