Spitting rhymes ... Andrew Motion and Redman represent. Photographs: Sarah Lee/Getty
News of the Cumbrian Tourist Board's decision to give Wordsworth's Daffodils a "21st century upgrade", paying some poor sap to record a rap version dressed as a giant squirrel, was predictably met with widespread derision this week. While maybe not of the same dignity-flambéeing category as Karl "MC" Rove's recent dalliance with rap, the likelihood of the Lake District becoming Tim Westwood's destination of choice when in need of some "pimp time" continues to remain minimal.
Like so many attempts to engage with the yoof, MC Nuts was stillborn. The average Asbo recipient will never react too favorably to being serenaded by a man dressed in a giant squirrel costume, with gunshots rather than cries of "blud, that use of iambic octameter is heavy!" the likelier result. Then again, nine bullet wounds worked for 50 Cent and our furry friend could always attempt a come back. Maybe, in homage to R Kelly's 12-part "epic", Trapped In the Closet, MC Nuts could record a whole run of the Prelude.
Yet poetry sales have been in the doldrums for years. Small presses are experiencing ever tighter purse strings, GCSE syllabuses contain less and less of the same stale verse, and besides the odd anthology of love poems, the general populace's main exposure to poetry is though Clinton Cards. Hip-hop, on the other hand, goes from strength to strength. A recent article in the New Statesman on Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent's latest efforts went so far as to say that the latter's track Ghetto Quran outdid anything produced by Keats. While the greatest props an MC can receive is to be called a "poet" - such plaudits are now standard for Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls - maybe our poets could actually learn something from hip-hop's ability to sell itself.
Of course, some learnt this lesson 200-odd years back. Lord Byron was the Original Gangster of English poetry. As the first "celebrity poet" he had a notorious string of hos and always kept some duelling pistols handy in case some playa hater started mouthing off about his mama. In Don Juan's notoriously scornful dedication, he also successfully merked his rivals in the poetry game: Bob Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth. Just as rappers thrive off having tiffs, Byron was famously enraged with the Lake Poets going soft whilst he remained authentically gangsta.
But then again, there were numerous 19th-century poets with street cred. Pushkin was one of the homies that didn't make it, being slain in a duel, and Rimbaud packed it all in to become an arms dealer in the Horn of Africa.
Sadly, not counting Andrew Motion's very unfortunate birthday rap written for Prince William's 21st, few contemporary poets can compare.
But this could all change. Tom Paulin could throw it down to the Poet Laureate, writing some battle rhymes in the TLS, and our literary journals could become more like pirate radio stations with poets promoting themselves by cussing each other put.
There could even be rapper-poet novelty singles; "Dizzee Rascal and JH Prynne perform Faust". There is always the danger that the quality of English poetry might suffer, but will the poets (and their publishers) really care when they're stacking their cash, kicking back with their homies and blazing the blunts?
