Who Really Cares: Childhood Poems

By Janis Ian

Who Really Cares, Childhood Poems by Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Janis Ian, includes all poetry from earlier, print editions of this early proof of what was to come from one of America’s most talented songwriters. Though Ian is a prolific composer and world-famous for her music and performances, this is the musician’s only book of poetry. It was first published in 1969, and has become a collector’s item in print.

Janis Ian wrote almost all of the poems during her teen years, a time when she was first thrust into the national and international spotlight as a songwriter and voice of her generation.

This 2015 ebook edition includes a new afterword by Janis Ian, along with all poems and photos from earlier editions.

Janis Ian began her career as a singer-songwriter in the 1960s with "Society's Child." In 1975, she won her first Grammy Award for the self-penned song, "At Seventeen." Since then she has had #1 hits all over the world, sold more than 10 million albums, and had her songs recorded by such diverse artists as Bette Midler, Roberta Flack, and John Mellencamp. She shows no signs of slowing down, recently beginning yet another career as an audio book narrator (which earned her a ninth nomination and second Grammy in 2013 for Society's Child: My Autobiography).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janis Ian
• Release date: Sep 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943588039

Janis Ian

Janis Ian,an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author, began her career singing in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1975, she won a Grammy Award for her song, "At Seventeen" and has continued to wow the world with her music ever since. Her books include science fiction, poetry, magazine articles and opinion columns, and her top-selling autobiography, "Society's Child"

Book preview

WHO REALLY CARES:

CHILDHOOD POEMS

Janis Ian

Lucky Bat Books presents a Rude Girl Press book

Who Really Cares: Childhood Poems

Copyright 1969 by Janis Ian

Introduction, Afterword, and all new material copyright 2002

Copyright 2015 by Janis Ian

Bahisma copyright 1967, renewal copyright 1996

Taosongs Two; used by permission

All rights reserved

Cover by Nuno Moreira

Originally published By Dial Press, New York, ©1969

Second Edition published by HAWK Publishing Group, © 2002

Photo Credits

cover (left to right): Carla Studna, Merka Oser Fletcher, Bernie Yadoff

Interior photos: 1954: Bernie Yadoff; 1966: Merka Oser Fletcher; 1967: Peter Cunningham; 1968: Peter Cunningham

Check out more at www.janisian.com

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with other people, please purchase additional copies. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase for your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Published by Lucky Bat Books in conjunction with Rude Girl Press

I don’t want to be a poet

I want to change your life

~ Rainier Maria Rilke

CONTENTS

Foreword by Janis Ian

I. Jon

Poems for the Young Bedwetter

Horatio

The Droning Rebels

79th Street

Tears

Poems for the Young Psychologist

Cock Robin is Dead

Poem for the Christening

Philo Judaeus

Mandy in Mourning

Epitaph

Who Comes So Lonely In The Night?

With his Crazy Black Hair, Whistling a Breeze

Mama & Me

Letter to the Damned

Jon

II. New York

Shaving the Turkey

Poem for a Guidance Counselor

Lighthouse

Through These Hallowed Hall

Eugene the Crazyboy

Aesop’s Fables

Hunter

A Chess Player

Poem for a Mundane Sermon

Dirty Dirty Boy

By Candlelight In Sullen Night

Partly at Paul’s

New Christ

Look / Life

My Sullen Song

III. Peter

I Love Your Chest Like Cat’s Tongue

A Day At the Circus

This Morning At Sunset

Ambrotype

Analogue

I Am the Lonely River

It is Time we Parted

Psalms, Psalms

The Arabesque Dancer

Bahimsa

Christmas Greetings

Like A Lonely Train Wreck, Sneaking

Song of Surrender

The Runes of Atlantis

What Then, Eurydice?

IV. Previously Unpublished

Atthis

I Was Only Standing There

Billie's Bones

Our First Abortive Date

Sailor Suits & Crinolines

A New Translation of the Old Testament

Relativity In Motion

I Read Sappho Before She Was Cool

Hate Mail In the Mail

You Are Too Cute For Words

Afterword By Janis Ian

Background Notes

About The Author

Foreword

The Problem with Poetry

The problem with writing a book of poetry, if you are a songwriter, is that you are a songwriter. You are not a poet.

At fifteen I thought, excusably perhaps, that they were one and the same. It took me several years of hard work at my craft as a songwriter to discover that songs and poetry are about as alike as songs and chickens – both have their own life, and there is a natural order to that life, but otherwise they are very, very different.

All young girls write poetry, kept in journals hidden under the mattress or in a little-used corner of their desks. The works in this volume are no better, or worse, than theirs. It was only published because, at the time, I happened to be in the position of having a recognizable brand-name that would ensure some sales.

I was an annoyingly precocious child, of that there is no doubt. I started talking at seven months and, to quote my mother, Never drew a breath since. Words have always been my safety valve, my way of understanding and connecting with the world around me.

When I was nine or ten years old, I decided I was going to be a poet. Not When I grow up, or After I finish school, but then and there. I didn’t see much point in waiting.

It was complicated, because I disliked the poetry I'd seen. I found most of it stultifying, the rhymes labored, the images far too ethereal for the world of concrete and rock I occupied. My parent’s bookshelves were full of the great poets, but none of them drew my attention. Reading words that existed without music, yet purported to be musical, made no sense to me.

Still, somehow I began writing, trying to capture what I felt on paper. Most of my efforts wound up in the wastebasket by my little desk. Once in a while I’d pen something I could stand to read the following day, and that would carefully be entered in my notebook. We didn’t have a lot of money, and pens and paper had to come out of my lunch allowance money. From fifth through sixth grade I trudged home for lunch instead of eating in the cafeteria. My sacrifice allowed me to buy a Schaeffer cartridge ink pen every three months, and enough paper to keep me supplied. (I was convinced at the time that real writers only used ink pens. I was also sure they only wrote on one side of the page. I have no idea where those ideas came from!)

Since I was afraid to turn on the stove,