The main characters in Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X include the titular character, "X" (which is the stage name that the fifteen-year-old Xiomara Batista adopted in her slam poetry group). X lives in Harlem with her family and is self-conscious about her curvy body, which elicits comments from men. She is torn between her mother's wishes that she eschew dating and men in favor of the church, and her burgeoning interest in the art of poetry.
