Audiobook · read by volunteers
If
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
Read by Annie Coleman Rothenberg, Catharine Eastman, Chip, Fox in the Stars, Gregory Rubin, Kayvan Sylvan, Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023), Linton, Lydia Uribe, Martin Clifton · 17 chapters · 38 min
About the book
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs: so begins a poem that generations have learned by heart. Rudyard Kipling’s If is a list of conditions, a set of calm, practical wishes from a father to a son, and a portrait of steadiness, humility and nerve. Its long, balanced sentence builds line by line toward a final turn that has been quoted countless times. Here are seventeen readings by LibriVox volunteers, recorded for a weekly poetry project, and together they show how a famous text can be made fresh by a voice. Each reading takes a couple of minutes, so you can pick one or play the entire set. It is a good companion for a day that needs courage, patience or a reminder of what really matters.
Introduction
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was born in India and became one of the best-known English-language writers of his age. He wrote novels, short stories and verse, among them The Jungle Book and poems such as Gunga Din and Recessional, and in 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. If, a poem addressed to a young man, is one of his most quoted works. Its lines are short, its parallel structure is clear and its closing line has become proverbial, so it is a natural candidate for a project in which many readers try the same text.
The poem is a single, carefully constructed series of conditions, each introduced by the word if, leading to a closing promise. It deals with composure under pressure, honesty, patience and balance between ambition and humility. In 1995 it was voted Britain’s favourite poem in a BBC opinion poll, a reminder of the hold it has on the public imagination. Its message is both traditional and rather stern, and it has been admired, quoted and parodied in equal measure. This recording is a multi-version collection. LibriVox volunteers produced seventeen different readings of the poem for a weekly poetry project, the week of 29 January 2006. There are 17 short chapters, around thirty-five minutes in total.
Hearing the same poem over and over makes its rhythm and its structure clear. The long suspended sentence is a challenge for any speaker, and each volunteer solves it differently.
The poem is only four stanzas long, so each reading is soon over. It is a short, uplifting listen, and a good way to see why this poem has lasted.
Public domain
Rudyard Kipling died in 1936: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text