Distinguished writer Elizabeth Acevedo kicked off her final 2025 Poet-In-Residence event at Francis W. Parker with a question for the audience: “what does it mean to forgive someone who is no longer there in forgiveness?”
Spending a day with high school students and an evening open to the community, Acevedo shared her public writings, herself, and her story in authentic conversation.
Joined on stage by Julian Randall (‘11), she read excerpts from her recent novel “Clap When You Land” and answered questions from the audience.
A celebrated author in numerous genres, Acevedo has earned numerous prestigious recognitions including the Carnegie Medal, the Walter Award, and the Pura Belpré Award. Additionally, she was named the 2022 Young People’s Poet Laureate and is a New York Times-bestselling author for her novel The Poet X.
Born to Dominican immigrants in New York, Acevedo grew up in a marginalized community blocks away from both wealthy rap artists and privileged Columbia students. As a child, she aspired to be a rapper – to embrace musicality and escape from a hard life – but after receiving encouragement from her middle school English teacher, she began to delve into the related world of slam poetry. Unlike other genres of writing, slam’s real-time audience responses captivated Acevedo. “I find it like a type of alchemy or magic that we’re able to see an audience member nodding or crying and responding to our experience,” she said.
After earning an MFA in creative writing, she became a middle school teacher herself. Working with tweens and young teens in a primarily African-American Maryland high school, she saw a need for more diverse representation in the world of literature. Acevedo was particularly inspired by a young student who described how she didn’t feel seen in the books that she was reading. This experience drove Acevedo to begin work on her first book, The Poet X.
“The Poet X” centers around the life of Xiomara, a fifteen-year-old Dominican girl living in New York. Although Xiomara is determined to share her poetry, her religious mother instead prioritizes Xiomara’s confirmation by preventing her from publishing her work. Although the cultural lens is specific, the novel explores broadly relatable topics such as family relationships, religion, and love all through the skillfully-crafted poetry verses. However, despite the book’s messaging, several schools across the United States banned it from their libraries on claims that it is “anti-Christian” because it addresses different views on religion.
Unlike a majority of novels, Acevedo chose to write “The Poet X” in verse: a style of writing based on the conventions of poetry. But even with her background and degree in creative writing, developing her first young audience novel was intimidating to an author who had exclusively written poetry. Her MFA in poetry didn’t involve fiction writing and the grammatical constructs felt overwhelming. But, inspired by her college writing courses, Acevedo took to teaching herself at the local library. “I spent hours taking out books written in verse from the local library and reading them, just consuming ideas. And then I’d look to see what aspects I enjoyed and what areas I think I could do better.” She copied the lesson plan of her MFA course, reading several books written in verse weekly, taking careful note of the aspects she liked and the areas she thought she could improve upon, and practicing a similar style through self-developed assignments.
Senior Lola Yee participated in both the poetry lunch and the evening event and described Acevedo as inspiring. “For me, the most impactful part was just how honest, genuine, and kind she was. She’s a writer because she believed in herself. We don’t write solely to be seen. We write to explore interactions, to better understand how we move through the world together as people, that there is connectedness to be discovered all around us.”
English department chair David Fuder was equally as impressed with Acevedo’s work and messages. “It was an absolute joy to have Elizabeth Acevedo here with us,” Fuder said. “She is kind, generous, creative, and a fierce writer.”
After reading several passages from her novels, Acevedo provided an easter egg for fans of her books. Those who follow along with Camino’s story – a character who first appeared in “Clap When You Land” as a teenager from the Dominican Republic struggling with the recent death of her father in a plane crash – will continue to have the opportunity to see her grow in future stories. But Acevedo also shared key advice that has allowed her to get to the place she is at today.
One of the lessons that she shared is that you have to take yourself into account when writing. Every individual has their own unique experiences that impact their work. Acevedo is also keen on keeping elements of a piece to use for other occasions. “I just kind of gather, you know, hints of language or of ideas or metaphors,” Acevedo said. “I advise not to throw out something because you don’t think it’s the perfect poem or because it’s not coming together. It might be a line or a title or single word that you use that you realize has a place somewhere else.”
Her advice to young authors? “Try to stay aware of what other people are doing – it’ll help you through your work,” she said. “Also, engage with other writers around you! It’ll give you a different perspective of their and even your own work. Finally, collect your work and be critical towards it, but also be tender to all the things you make.”
The evening with Acevedo was part of the Poetry at Parker series sponsored by the Jeanne Harris Hansell Endowed Fund for Poetry, established in the name of Jeanne Harris Hansell ’45. Prior presenters have included Randall ‘11 as well as Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, Nikky Finney, Louise Glück, Kevin Young, Joy Harjo, Naomi Shihab Nye, Natasha Trethewey, Elise Paschen ’77, and Gabrielle Calvocoressi.
