Your Wednesday Morning Poetry

 

 

I was thinking about Rudyard Kipling's "If" while half-asleep last night. It's been shared innumerable times. I've seen it in poetry anthologies, in comics books, even on Dr. Bronner's s soap bottles. 

 

I remember one writer opining on how its "political incorrectness" (referring to the gender specific line "...you'll be a Man, my son!" ) as being necessary for the poem to have its emotional weight.

 

I asked myself this: What is its twenty-first century equivalent? Does there need to be one?

 

Has anyone presented a response poem to it? Have I read it without knowing it?

 

I'll look into this later. For now, here's If" courtesy once again of the Poetry Foundation.