Who are your favorite spoken word poets?

Les Murray is a fine live performer, and so is Patrick Jones.

Linton Kwesi Johnson always impresses me with his performances, though I often find his poems a disappointment when I re-read them later. John Cooper Clarke is almost as good live, and his work repays revisiting much better. Benjamin Zephaniah rarely does justice to his own poems, though other readers can perform them well.

Eddie Linden used to be an unforgettable performer, though I think he is in retirement now. Adrian Mitchell might have been one of the finest performers of the last century, I certainly thought so when I shared a bill with him.

I wish I had been lucky enough to see Spike Hawkins perform: he sounds amazing in recordings.

Rhian Edwards seems very promising among younger performers. I have seen Sarah Jones only on video, but she also seems very memorable.

But we have no-one in English as good as Ernst Jandl.

I would like to have heard Walt Whitman..

And so would you

There we are

Just we three

Am trying to think of a questions we could ask

See hear now Walt Whitman..

From whence came all your positive

Vibrations..

A bird,a tree,The Nation...

All,all..loved with equal fervor

Held up for our joy and astonishment

God or something!

And if it´s not...I will be just as glad..

Taking liberties!?