There have always been poets who performed. Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.

Adrian Mitchell FRSL (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet novelist and playwright. He did this through his poetry his plays his song lyrics and his own performances. He went on to study English at Christ Church Oxford where he was taught by J.

The Times said that Mitchell's had been a "forthright voice often laced with tenderness. " His poems on such topics as nuclear war Vietnam prisons and racism had become "part of the folklore of the Left. "
In a National Poetry Day poll in 2005 his poem "Human Beings" was voted the one most people would like to see launched into space.