Emily Cullen's 7-Year-Old Poem Lands on Son's English Exam

Q: How did a poet react when her son faced an exam question on a poem she secretly wrote about him?

She reacted with astonishment and emotion, calling it a “once-in-a-lifetime synchronicity,” “flabbergasting,” and a “pleasant shock.” Emily Cullen said she had no idea her poem, “Envoi in Chalk,” had been chosen for her son Lee’s Junior Cycle English exam, because exam selections are kept confidential. When Lee came out smiling and told her that “the poem you wrote about me came up in the paper,” she was stunned, describing the moment as surreal and hard to believe. The poem had been written seven years earlier after Cullen saw Lee, then eight, write in chalk on a pavement: “The world is great.” At the time, she was going through a difficult period with her mother in hospital, and the message lifted her spirits enough to inspire the poem. Cullen said the experience was especially moving because her 15-year-old son was now analyzing in an exam a poem she had written about him as a child. Reports say she was deeply touched, shared a hug with Lee, and quickly phoned relatives to tell them what had happened. Lee, meanwhile, chose to answer the exam question in the third person rather than reveal the personal link, worrying that an examiner might not believe such an unusual story.

Q: What happens when your childhood memory becomes a question on your national exam?

It turns a private memory into a public text, and in Emily Cullen’s case it became an extraordinary collision of family life, literature and exam culture. Lee Cullen, 15, sat his Junior Cycle English paper in Ireland and found “Envoi in Chalk,” a poem his mother had written about him seven years earlier. The poem came from a real childhood moment: when he was eight, he wrote in chalk on a pavement, “The world is great,” during a difficult period for the family. Emily Cullen later turned that scene into a poem, which was published and eventually selected for the state exam without her prior knowledge. What happens in practice is that a personal memory stops being only autobiographical and becomes something to be analyzed like any other set text. For Lee, that created an unusual exam problem: whether to answer as someone inside the poem or as a normal candidate. He chose the third person, judging that an examiner might not believe his direct connection. The episode also shows how national exams can unexpectedly validate everyday experience. A child’s fleeting act became part of the official curriculum, and a family memory entered the shared cultural record. Cullen said the moment was “flabbergasting,” but it also reinforced a broader point she made about poetry’s value: that it can preserve ordinary life, carry emotional truth across years, and return to people in ways no one can predict.

3 articles · Updated · BBC.com · Jun 9

Galway poet Emily Cullen discovered after her son Lee's Junior Cycle English exam that a poem she wrote about him seven years earlier had appeared on the paper.
Envoi in Chalk was inspired by a message Lee wrote on a pavement at age 8 — “The world is great” — which Cullen said lifted her during a difficult period when her mother was in hospital.
Lee, now 15, briefly considered answering in the first person because he had inspired the poem, but chose the third person in case the examiner would not believe him.
Cullen said she had no advance notice the poem had been selected, adding that exam texts are typically kept confidential until the test.
The moment carried extra poignancy because Cullen's mother has since died and she is now caring for her 95-year-old father while working on her fourth poetry collection.