While this monkey and poetry convergence is Rudyard Kipling's, it is by way of Glenn Beck that I encountered it. Beck has a
trailer for his new book The Overton Window (it's a thriller. Which you can obviously tell from the very thrilling title). Now, I don't really "get" book trailers, but hey, anything to get the word out, right? Because how else are you going to reach people who don't read? Obviously your target audience. But whatever. Make trailers for books. I don't care. What's really weird about Beck's trailer is that he the writing of another author in order to sell his writing. The trailer uses the last two stanza's of Kipling's
"The Gods of the Copybook Headings". No words from Beck. Can you imagine a movie trailer that used footage from another movie entirely instead of clips from the movie being promoted? That would be weird. It would almost make it seem like whatever movie (or book) the trailer was for probably sucks. But who knows? Maybe Beck is better at writing books than making trailers (I am doubtful).
In any case, the monkey connection comes in stanza two:
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
