Favorite Quote from The Poet X

Activity Overview

Having students choose a favorite quote or scene from the book allows them to express which parts of the story resonated with them on a personal level. In this way, students are making a text-to-self connection that demonstrates their understanding of the characters and their development or the themes of the novel. Students can share their storyboards afterwards and have a short discussion about what the quotes mean to them.

Some students may end up choosing the same quote, but have different perspectives. This is always interesting for students to see and can open up a discussion as to how not everyone can read the same lines in the same way based on their own perspectives and personal experiences.

The Poet X Quotes

Their gazes and words / are heavy with all the things/ they want you to be. / It is ungrateful to feel like a burden. / It is ungrateful to resent my own birth. / I know that Twin and I are miracles. / Aren’t we reminded every single day?

I look at her scarred knuckles. / I know exactly how she was taught / faith.

And about this apple, / how come God didn’t explain / why they couldn’t eat it? / He gave Eve curiosity / but didn’t expect her to use it? / Unless the apple is a metaphor? / Is the whole Bible a poem? / What’s not a metaphor? / Did any of it actually happen?

It's not any one thing / that makes me wonder / about the capital G.O.D. / About a holy trinity / that don’t include the mother.

what’s the point of God giving me life / if I can’t live it as my own? / Why does listening to his commandments / mean I need to shut down my own voice?

The poet talks about being black, about being a woman, / about how beauty standards make it seem she isn’t pretty. / I don’t breathe for the entire three minutes /while I watch her hands, and face, / feeling like she’s talking directly to me. / She’s saying the thoughts I didn’t know anyone else had. / We’re different, this poet and I. In looks, in body, / in background. But I don’t feel so different / when I listen to her. I feel heard.

When I was little / Mami was my hero. / But then I grew breasts / and although she was always extra hard on me, / her attention became something else, / like she wanted to turn me / into the nun / she could never be.

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.

But even business deals are promises. / And we still married in a church. / And so I never walked away from him / although I tried my best to get back / to my first love. / And confirmation is the last step I can give you.

I can’t remember / the last time people were silent / while I spoke, actually listening. / Not since Aman. / But it’s nice to know I don’t need him / in order to feel listened to. / My little words / feel important, for just a moment. / This is a feeling I could get addicted to.

I actually raise my hand / in English class / and answer Ms. Galiano’s question. / Because at least here with her, / I know my words are okay.

Because so many of the poems tonight / felt a little like our own stories. / Like we saw and were seen. / And how crazy would it be / if I did that for someone else?

I have no more poems. My mind blanks. / A roar tears from my mouth. / “Burn it! Burn it. / This is where the poems are,” I say, / thumping a fist against my chest. / “Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too? / You would burn me, wouldn’t you, if you could?”

“I only know that learning to believe in the power of my own words has been the most freeing experience of my life. It has brought me the most light. And isn't that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark.”

“Late into the night I write and the pages of my notebook swell from all the words I’ve pressed onto them. It almost feels like the more I bruise the page the quicker something inside me heals.”

“Just because your father's present, / doesn't mean he isn't absent.”

“I will never let anyone see my full heart and destroy it.”

No one, not even your twin brother, / will understand the burden / you feel because of your birth; / your mother has sight for nothing / but you two and God; / your father seems to be serving / a penance, an oath of solitary silence.

"Pero, tú no eres fácil.” / You sure ain’t an easy one.”

“My parents probably wanted a girl who would sit in the pews wearing pretty florals and a soft smile. They got combat boots and a mouth silent until it’s sharp as an island machete.”

“She tells me words give people permission to be their fullest self and aren't these the poems I most needed to hear?”

“When your body takes up more room than your voice, you are always the target of well aimed rumors.”

“Your silence furnishes a dark house. / But even at the risk of burning, / the moth always seeks the light.”

“One thing I know for sure is that reputations last longer than the time it takes to make them.”

“Sometimes it seems like writing is the only way I keep from hurting.”

“I've forced my skin as thick as I am.”

“I close my eyes and let myself find in music what I've always searched for: a way away.”

“He is not elegant enough for a sonnet, / too well-thought-out for a free write, / taking too much space in my thoughts / to ever be a haiku.”

“She knew since she was little, the world would not sing her triumphs, but she took all of the stereotypes and put them in a chokehold until they breathed out the truth.”

“Maybe there are no words to say. I just want to be held.”