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Poem of the Day: Phil Klay selects ‘Tommy’

Kipling’s soldier is aware of the hypocrisies of the society that both depends on him and holds him in contempt.

Via Wikimedia Commons
Portrait of Rudyard Kipling, 1891, detail, by John Collier. Via Wikimedia Commons
EDITED BY JOSEPH BOTTUM
EDITED BY JOSEPH BOTTUM

For the third day of a week of war poetry in The New York Sun, guest editor Phil Klay writes:

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EDITED BY JOSEPH BOTTUM
EDITED BY JOSEPH BOTTUM

Mr. Bottum is the author of eight books, including 'An Anxious Age' and 'The Decline of the Novel.' Director of the Classics Institute at Dakota State University, he has written over 800 essays, poems, reviews, and short stories in publications from the Atlantic to the Washington Post. His poetry collections include 'The Fall and Other Poems' and 'The Second Spring,' and he has received a 2019 Christopher Medal for his poetry in the year’s best children’s book. He lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

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