Luke Kennard addresses the Crossing Club

Rising star Luke Kennard returned to Exeter School on Thursday 11 January to meet the sixth-form Crossing Club and to put them to work.

Luke's profile on Amazon describes him as 'tall, nervous, polite' and lists his favourite canapé as the cocktail sausage roll. This slightly underplays the magnitude of his achievements to date (at 26, Kennard is the youngest poet ever to be shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection) but draws attention to his sense of humour which had the audience of pupils and staff laughing aloud. The writing exercise consisted of constructing creative (and humorous) writing based around the famous genre that is 'magazine questionnaires'. The serious business of poetry is a great deal of fun.