payment page
Summary
Part I: In the Beginning Was the Word, Section 1: “Stoop-Sitting – “Rumor Has It”
The Poet X is a novel told in verse through the first-person point of view of fifteen-year-old Xiomara Batista who is about to begin her sophomore year in a new high school. As she sits on the steps in front of her apartment building in Harlem, boys passing by catcall her, and she is self-conscious about her body. She’s very tall with large breasts and hips, and boys and girls both remark on her body. Xiomara’s name means warrior, which is fitting since she has gotten in physical fights over the comments, but she says she can handle it. Although Xiomara doesn’t invite any of the attention, her mother blames her and doesn’t listen to her at all because she expects unquestioning obedience from her daughter, especially when it comes to boys and the Catholic faith that is so important to Mami.
Mami is a hard-working cleaning lady in an office building who rides trains each morning and night for an hour each way, reading her Bible as she makes the commute. She’s wanted her daughter to be confirmed since Xiomara was twelve, but because of various circumstances, Xiomara is only now enrolled in confirmation class at church. For Xiomara, Jesus is an overwhelming presence in her life that she doesn’t think she needs. Because her mother is so rigid and adamant, though, Xiomara doesn’t know how to tell her that she doesn’t want to go to confirmation class. Xiomara’s ambivalence is rooted in how she sees the church not valuing girls specifically and people of color in general. When Xiomara asks not to attend the classes, Mami threatens to send Xiomara back to the Dominican Republic to be taught piety. Xiomara understands because of scars on her mother’s hands that she was beaten by the priests and nuns back in the D.R.
Xiomara’s parents are older than average because Mami had a hard time getting pregnant. Because of that, Xiomara and her twin brother Xavier are considered miracles in the neighborhood. Their birth led to Papi’s reformation from a womanizer who drank and partied to a serious man who won’t do anything that might tempt him. He is silent and distant from the family. Mami had a baby bracelet made for Xiomara with her name and the words my daughter engraved on it, but Xiomara comes to think of the bracelet as a form of bondage. Xiomara learns to hate church along with the oppression of being her mother’s miracle and the guilt of considering it a burden. She is forced to go to church with Mami, who goes every single day, her devotion to the church having increased since the birth of her children. Mami wanted to be a nun when she was younger, but her family brokered her marriage to Papi as a way to get her to the United States, and Xiomara believes her mother resents her father for robbing her of her dream to become a nun.
Analysis
Xiomara consistently gets unwanted attention from men and feels intimidated and oppressed by her mother. The drug dealers who catcall her not only sexualize her but also mock her for going to church. Xiomara ignores them, but her mother implies that she is seeking their attention by sitting on the stoop, establishing the idea that even when Xiomara does nothing wrong, her mother disapproves of her actions and her in general. Despite the fact that Mami named her, she is critical of how Xiomara embodies the meaning of her name. Xiomara knows Mami wants a submissive daughter who will go to church in a modest dress and sit quietly and demurely, but Xiomara is a fighter. She says she was born feet-first and ready for battle and has been a warrior ever since. She’s heard her parents say she’s not an easy child her whole life even though Mami criticizes her for small and simple things like not performing chores perfectly and for defending herself against sexual harassment.
The conflict between Xiomara and her mother is underpinned by Xiomara’s feelings about the church. While Mami dreamed of a life as a nun and then tried to be devout while struggling in a marriage she never wanted, it is ultimately through the birth of Xiomara and her twin brother Xavier that she seems to feel the love of God. After becoming a mother, she attends church daily and expects Xiomara to feel the same obedient devotion. Xiomara, however, feels two intertwined burdens related to her mother and the church. Where Mami is concerned, Xiomara feels the pressure of being considered a miracle and having to live up to her mother’s expectations. Her name is representative of that conflict. Mami thought she was naming her daughter after a saint, but the name actually means someone ready to do battle. Xiomara is no saint, and she has grown into someone who believes she must fight to defend herself physically and spiritually.
Tangled up in her conflict with her mother is Xiomara’s feeling of being forced into the Catholic faith by Mami. Xiomara feels trapped into embracing a faith that does not feel true to her. She has issues with the misogyny she perceives in the Catholic faith, believing that women are valued only for their ability to have children rather than for their minds. She also questions whether or not the tenets of the Bible and church are in the best interests of people of color in general since she believes turning the other check could get a young man like her brother killed in the society in which they live. It also doesn’t help that Xiomara believes her longed-for birth is Mami’s debt that Xiomara is expected to repay. She even sees this through the rumors about Papi who treats parenthood like penance. When Xiomara notes Mami’s scarred knuckles, it is an indication that her feelings about the oppressive nature of Mami’s religion are justified. Xiomara is suspicious of a religion that requires physical abuse to ensure obedient compliance with its rules and norms. Overall, Xiomara sees nothing positive or spiritually affirming in the faith her mother expects her to live by unquestioningly, setting her up for continued conflict not only within herself but with her mother as well.
