Elizabeth Acevedo Assmbly

By: Selim Kim, Jessica Huang, Anna Kim

New York Times best-selling author and poet Elizabeth Acevedo enraptured Exonians during last Tuesday’s assembly. During her fun and high-spirited talk, Acevedo discussed her personal experiences as both an author and a poet, her challenges amidst COVID-19, her exploration of identity and finding her own path. Following her assembly talk, Acevedo met with preps, who read her novel The Poet X over the summer, for a reading and Q&A session.

As a writer and a poet, Acevedo described that she aims to include themes of music into her writing as its own canon. “I don't like the dichotomies of how we create, like ‘this is high art that we look at and then this is art that entertains us,’” Acevedo said. “How would I play with dialogue or how can I create a stanza that maybe flips that way. I look to music just as much as I look to all the books behind me to create voice. I think music is a huge way to create an environment and ecosystem that someone is walking into.” 

According to Acevedo, her work is about taking an idea of her own canon and making it heard. “This is about the music in our ears. This is a certain rhythm,” Acevedo said. “I'm going to teach you how to read so the music seems like an important part...It is also just saying [that] you know these folks deserve to be on the pages, to be printed, to be talked about in the same way that I've read in a young adult novel. For me, it was my canon is just as dope, it’s just as deserving.” 

When asked about the parallels between her characters’ lives and her own, Acevedo explained how many of her books draw inspiration from a “hodgepodge” of others' personal experiences. “I didn't go in writing The Poet X wanting to tell my story. I'm asked if I'll ever write an autobiography of myself and I think my personal story is pretty boring. I kept trying to [find] the most interesting story,” Acevedo said.

Acevedo acknowledged, however, how some of the big themes and events in her book often did come from specific anecdotes of her own childhood. “I was in the middle of writing [The Poet X] and I'm like, ‘Dang, something has to happen.’...What was the biggest thing that happened to me? That will be realistic,” Acevedo explained. 

“One of the biggest things was this moment where I was on a train, making out with my high school boyfriend. I was not allowed to have a relationship at the time. And my dad was pressed against the window watching, so I remembered that. I was like, ‘This would be a perfect moment.’”

For those who had read The Poet X over the summer, Acevedo’s attempt to incorporate her own and others’ experiences were successfully communicated.“The scene where Xiomara gets caught with Aman on the train did feel very real while I read it. So, when she said that it was directly inspired by her own experience of having a secret boyfriend I wasn’t entirely surprised,” Prep Hannah Dirsa said. “It was such a raw, emotional part of the book that probably only could have been taken from her experiences.” 

Prep Ugo Barrah enjoyed Acevedo’s talk as well. “During the assembly, she stressed the importance of understanding ‘full self,’” Barrah said. “I left the assembly with a better understanding of what it really means to check in with the person behind what may be, in actuality, an act. Acevedo did an exemplary job encapsulating the struggle behind establishing identity, with the themes of self-expression present in her writing.”

Despite her use of personal anecdotes in her writing, Acevedo reminded her readers to lift the emotional resonance of personal experiences rather than copying them down as an autobiographical moment. “I begin lifting [by asking], ‘What are the feelings here?’ It's not necessarily that this is exactly what happened, but here's the thing I've heard happening in the neighborhood or here's the thing my mom told me happened to her that I'm gonna borrow,” Acevedo said.

Later in the talk when asked about how she found her path from switching from an English teacher to a touring poet, Acevedo said, “I allowed myself to realize that I am unhappy. This isn’t working for me. What is the next pivot?” While teaching, Acevedo poured all of her energy towards developing a curriculum and thinking about how to engage her students. “It took me a long time to realize, [that] this wasn’t working for me. I spent two years where I did not write a single thing,” Acevedo said. 

Even though Acevedo was content with her decision to give up teaching, her parents were not so supportive at the beginning. “My life isn’t about fulfilling my parents’ expectations. They might just not get it. And I have to be okay with the fact that they might not get it. When you get to the point where you dread the work, that is the breaking point,” Acevedo said.

English Instructor Courtney Marshall appreciated Acevedo’s open perspective. “She encourages those who are marginalized to not stop writing and creating.  Someone somewhere is waiting for what you have to offer.  I love that about her writing and her presentation,” Marshall said. 

Similarly, English teacher and Prep Program Coordinator Tyler Caldwell appreciated Acevedo’s inspirational words. “I deeply admire Acevedo’s openness and honesty – with her students, her audience, and herself,” Caldwell said. “Part of her power comes from her ability and her desire to write for her community without translation for a white audience,”

Students can continue to expect more of Acevedo’s powerful and honest work in the future. “I don’t care what they say. I do me. I’m going to write the work that I want,” Acevedo said. She encouraged everyone to search for and find their own path, a major theme of The Poet X. “[Learn] what is for you by realizing what you’re afraid of.”

Before signing off from the Assembly, Acevedo asked the Academy some important questions and presented simple advice: “Are you going to keep that or are you going to change? When is enough? Don’t do the boring thing.”