The Slam Poetry of Xiomara: Analyzing the Assertion of the Adolescent Dominican-American Female Identity in The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Abstract

Language as a societal and personal construct, tends to be at the center of identity formation and the assertion of the self. Akin to the variation in language structures and language patterns in different cultures and nationalities, the usage of language varies according to identities of age, race and ethnicity. This peculiar yet crucial intermingling of race and age in the poetry of Xiomara and the poetic verse of Elizabeth Acevedo’s verse novel The Poet X (2018), is integral to studies relating to the patterns of self-assertion and identity formation. As the young adolescent population often find themselves silenced or their presence subdued by the structures of family, religion and patriarchy demanding conformity to established norms, the rebellious and transgressive poetry of Xiomara represents the forms of self-expression, self-assertion and protests against these dominant structures by adolescents. Xiomara’s defiant slam poetry in the verse novel The Poet X marks a strong statement of the racio-cultural and age identity, attacking the superstructures and superseding these structures and the restrictive norms with triumphant free flowing verse true to the self. Language thus, serves as a racio-cultural ‘markedness’ in the text as Xiomara’s poetry serves as a marker of her Dominican identity and a defiance against the language patterns of the Whites. It is both a tool for cultural revival and cultural survival. Xiomara’s powerful rebellious teenage slam poetry is a revolution in itself that questions existing dominant dogmas and serves as a discourse about freedom, identity and assertion in itself.