Students at Exeter College celebrated National Poetry Day last week with a range of events, including a visit from performance poet Matt Harvey.

Over 130 students packed the college's Theatre at the Centre for Creative Industries on Queen Street on Thursday afternoon as Mr Harvey entertained them with anecdotes and poetry. He shared with them some of his published work from his recent anthologies “Where earwigs dare” and “The hole in the sum of my parts”. Students also had an opportunity to ask him questions about his career, inspirations and techniques.

Mr Harvey, who regularly features on Radio 4 and is currently touring with his latest publication, visited the college as part of the national celebration of poetry. “It was a real pleasure to come and have such a generous reception. I really appreciated the range of intelligent questions that the students asked. The best thing about National Poetry Day is that it reminds people that poetry is there and that they can do it. I hope that I'm making it accessible. I want people to realise that they don’t have to like all poetry but they can always find poetry that they enjoy” he said.

Robin White, lecturer in the Faculty of English, Language and the IB at Exeter College, who organised the visit praised the national initiative for engaging young people in modern poetry: “The event attracted students from all subject disciplines and we received a huge number of high quality entries to the poetry competition. For me the day was a wonderful confirmation that poetry can still fascinate, stimulate and have a whole roomful of teenagers in fits of laughter.”