My poetry kids have been working on writing more positive poems the last couple of weeks. We started out with odes because they tend to be a fun and easy way to be positive. I did my own ode to them last week. It's a rough draft. It's not perfect--but it was fun to write with them.

An Ode to the Purple Generation

I am a Millennial

My favorite thing about my generation is our ability to throw a party for anything. 

Graduation party

Promotion party

Game of Thrones party

That’s also tied into my least favorite thing about my generation:

The gender reveal party

As if having us attend a housewarming party, an engagement party, a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, another bridal shower, a couples shower, a wedding, a baby shower, anad a diaper keg weren’t enough, we now have to come see you bust a pinata, pop a balloon, cut a cake, or I don’t know dye your chest hair to show us if your baby is blue or pink. 

Let alone the small detail that this person hasn’t even taken their first breath yet. 

We’ve been dubbed, with a negative connotation, the Me Generation. 

Selfish, maybe, but really we’ve given voice to the individual. 

To me. 

We celebrate and throw parties for the I. 

We demand raises that reflect the amount of student debt

Student debt

Student debt

We took on to be the best individual. 

I work with middle schoolers

Pioneers of the new Generation Z

A generation so fresh it hasn’t yet been given it’s derogatory Me Generation-like name. 

My favorite part about Generation Z is how purple they are. 

Maybe it’s all the Mountain Dew their Gen Xer parents drank before their conception combined with our belief in Me, that one person can change the world, but Generation Z has given us a we. 

Greta Thunberg, one child, speaks for our whole planet. 

Students assemble for the me’s and we’s who want to be safe at schools, Walmarts, and concerts

Maybe they aren’t handing out participation trophies any more and these kids are better at spitting on a split knee and getting back in the fight. 

These kids are finding who they are, their ME, at a time when I was signed up for basketball and advanced math because my mommy did it for me. 

They are boys, girls, transgender, gender fluid, bisexual, gay, lesibian, straight, pansexual: one who isn’t limited to sexual choice with regard to gender identity.

One who isn’t limited

Pink and blue bleed together into so many shades of purple and they are limitless

More Millennials’ babies make their way into the world 

And a new generation is close to sprouting

I hope they take the Me from us and the Us from you and keep giving a big eff off to their parents’ gender reveal parties and paint our world purple.