National Young Person’s Poet Laureate Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X is a National Book Award-winner and New York Times bestseller. The book follows the story of Xiomara, a rising tenth grader in Harlem. Ali Velshi praises the way Acevedo approaches faith, family, sexuality, self-preservation, self-love and self-expression through free verse. She connects the reader to the protagonist’s coming-of-age story through the poetry she’s writing.

Parents and organizations who find the religious component of Xiomara’s journey anti-Christian have targeted The Poet X. The difficult discussions of agency, religious belief, and culture are at the heart of the book and are navigated by parents and children every day all over the world, whether we’re comfortable with those discussions or not.

If you’re concerned about approaching a story told in poetry, Acevedo assures that there’s nothing here you can’t learn — or relearn.  “Poetry is, in many ways, some of our first languages. Our parents sing us lullabies, our parents tell us rhymes all the time, we grow up listening to poetry, and then we lose that. There’s nothing wrong with returning to poetry.”

Listen to Velshi and Acevedo discuss The Poet X

Watch Velshi and Acevedo talk about the clash between culture and religious belief

Velshi on banned books on MSNBC:

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