Eighth grade poet, Moses Jackson, learns his family will be changing and his anger leads him to make a bad decision. He is forced to move to a new school where he encounters racism for the first time. Writing poetry helps Moses to cope, but the treatment he has to endure from his teacher and a few classmates pushes him to the edge.

Moses must learn to love his new extended family and his blackness. He also has to decide if he should speak up about how his teacher treats him at the risk of getting kicked out of school.