TAYLOR SWIFT is permeating the media this week promoting her album"Red" . . . so why not test your Taylor trivia with the "10 Things You Didn't Know About Taylor Swift".  A couple of them actually surprised me.

#1.) She's an award-winning poet.

In the fourth grade, Taylor's poem "Monster In My Closet" placed first in a national poetry contest.  Here's the poem:  "There's a monster in my closet and I don't know what to do / Have you ever seen him? / Has he ever pounced on you?"

#2.)  Taylor's dad owns 3% of her record label.

He was an early investor in Big Machine Records.

#3.)  Taylor's brother Austin is a student at Vanderbilt University.

He transferred from Notre Dame.

#4.) The DIXIE CHICKS were a major influence.

There are others . . . but she ranks the Chicks way up there.

#5.)  She wrote a novel when she was 12.

It's 350 pages and it's DONE.  (--She only wrote it to make the rest of us feel like underachievers.)

#6.)  Taylor's grandmother on her mom's side was an opera singer.

 Taylor's grandma Marjorie Finlay was an "accomplished opera singer" . . . and Taylor looks EXACTLY like her.  I swear.  (--Check out side-by-side photos.)  

#7.)   Her first job involved tons of bugs.

She knocked praying mantis pods out of trees on her family's Christmas tree farm.

#8.)  Taylor Swift was the first "Saturday Night Live" host to ever write their own monologue.

It was song she wrote called "My Monologue Song".

#9.) The thought of a real tattoo actually terrifies her.

#10.) She's sort of blind.

When she's not wearing glasses, she's wearing contact lenses.