Happy 67th Birthday, Barbie (March 9, 1959)

"Math class is tough" by Glen Brown

Sure, it doesn’t add up:

countless camping and skiing trips with Ken,

swimming and skating parties without danger,

dancing and shopping engagements

with Midge and Skipper

like an infinite summer vacation.
Nothing here hints at a dull math class

for integral Barbie and her complex playmates!

Even her curvaceous body

proves mathematically impossible.
She’s an isosceles bimbo

with the whole greater than the sum of her parts.

Just bend her at an obtuse angle,

press her into her pink Porsche

and watch her scud across miles of linoleum

or catapult down the stairs.

You’ll know that her appeal

is an equation of Euclidean beauty and speed.

She doesn’t need school.

She was created to multiply

fantasy by freedom in every young girl’s mind.
Why be upset when Barbie says,

"Math class is tough."

You can always add for her –

the numberless accessories

to her expression of the American dream.

“Euclid and Barbie” was originally published with a different title in South Coast Poetry Journal, 1993.

“Euclid and Barbie” was also published with a different title in an anthology entitled “A Taste of Poetry, Chicago Style” in 1996.