This is Episode 57 of Poems for the Speed of Life. Today's poem is "If—", by Rudyard Kipling.

Rudyard Kipling was an Indian-born British poet. Maybe best known now for “The Jungle Book”, his novel that became a classic Disney film, he is the youngest ever winner of the Nobel prize in literature, which he was awarded in 1907 at the age of 42. 

More than a century later, his legacy has often been questioned. He is sometimes seen as the outdated voice of the old British empire, and has variously been criticised as old-fashioned, jingoistic, even racist, although others would argue that those criticisms, coming through a modern lens that fails to appreciate the reality of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, are unfair.

Even this poem has been seen by some as exclusionary or even sexist, as it ends with the words "you'll be a man, my son". 

For one thing, the poem was first published in 1910 as an address to Kipling’s only son, John, who was then 12. (Tragically, John was killed in action in France during WW1, a few weeks after his 18th birthday.)

For another thing, it’s my belief that there’s nothing wrong if a man writes for a male reader. The poem outlines many of the Stoic values that have appealed to countless men over thousands of years, at least as far back as the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations were in the same Stoic tradition.

You can read the poem here

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Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com