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THREAD: In honor of Shakespeare’s birthday today, I’m going to share a true story about the Bard and Donald Trump…
Stick with me on this. It was March 2004, my very first week as a reporter at the @nypost, where I had been hired to cover my home borough of Queens...
That morning the @nytimes had a hilarious front-page story by @robertfworth on Queens’ failed search for a poet laureate... https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/nyregion/ah-poetic-injustice-seeking-a-laureate-queens-goes-blank.html
I walked over to my editor, @jessemangelo, and pitched my idea: “What if we can convince a Queens rapper to apply to be poet laureate?” Jesse shrugged, which I decided to take as a yes.
But when I was about to give up, a publicist for Joseph “Rev. Run” Simmons of RunDMC fame called me back and was willing to at least humor me long enough to hear my pitch…
I told him that while Dylan Thomas may have had “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” like any self-respecting child from Queens, I preferred “Christmas in Hollis...”
Rev. Run asked me what the job of poet laureate entailed. Not much, I explained. It’s mostly ceremonial… In that case, he said. “I’d be honored to take the job...”
The story ran on April 5 as the lead item on Page Six. “Though he prefers gold chains and Adidas to the traditional crown of laurels, Simmons contends no one is better attuned to the borough's distinct rhyme and muni-meter…”
It went viral. The story was picked up by media around the world. And sparked a debate, believe it or not, about whether rap is poetry.
The next day I got a phone call from Rev. Run’s brother, rap mogul Russell Simmons.
“Jeremy, you did more for my brother with that story than all the publicists over here have in years,” @UncleRUSH told me. “How can we keep this story going?”
I told him I was asking various New York luminaries to comment on his brother’s candidacy. “Oh. Stay by your phone,” he said.
About 10 minutes later the phone rings. “Please hold for Mr. Trump…”
“Rev. Run is my Shakespeare,” @realdonaldtrump told me.
I thought he was Pucking with me. But the praise only went on from there…
Now the poet laureate position was all in the hands of a committee led by the 94-year-old librarian of Queens College…
The decision was to be announced on April 23, Shakespeare’s birthday, naturally…
Run, sadly, didn’t get the job. In spite of Trump’s endorsement, the post went to a lovely woman named Yi Park.
“I don’t know if Queens is ready for a rapper as a poet,” @revrunwisdom said. https://www.today.com/popculture/run-loses-bid-become-queens-poet-laureate-wbna4818076
It all seemed improbable at the time. That was before @lin_manuel made America’s founding fathers rap. Before Rev. Run got his own TV show. And before his biggest fan went to Washington.
Puck is out there somewhere smiling: ““And those things do best please me / That befall prepost’rously”
So Happy Birthday, Mr. Shakespeare. And Happy Thursday, everyone else.
