DemiGoddess the Elder is a Poet

A few weeks ago, Demi the Elder told me that she’d entered a poem she had written into a poetry contest at school. I knew she was clever and creative in many ways, but until then I did not know she wrote poetry. Intrigued, I asked if I could read her submission.

No, she said. It’s too embarrassing.

Oh, my child, I said. You have no idea about embarrassing. I told her that I had, buried in the basement, reams of my own high school poetry—self-obsessed, pretentious, over-the-top with angst high school poetry. Poetry that is the very definition of embarrassing. And which she might read, if she would let me read hers.

It was a deal.

Her poem is called “Soon They’ll Come Out with a Barbie Girl Mastercard.” It’s a commentary on some of the more rampant consumerists in her peer group, and is scathing, earnest and funny.

Yesterday at school Ms. Elder found out she won first place in that poetry contest at school.

I’m hoping she’ll use the Barnes & Noble gift card she received as a prize to purchase something a little more worthwhile to read than my eleventh-grade creative writing.