I wrote a poem about my son - years later it appeared on his exam paper

When Emily Cullen picked up her son after his English exam, she assumed the smile on his face meant things had gone well.

Instead, the Galway poet was about to discover that a poem she had written seven years earlier, and which was inspired by him, had appeared on the paper.

"He had a big, broad smile on his face and I thought, 'Oh that's good. He must have remembered some Shakespeare quotes'," Cullen said.

But he said "you won't believe it mum - the poem you wrote about me came up in the paper".

'Once-in-a-lifetime synchronicity'

The poem, Envoi in Chalk, appeared in a Junior Cycle English exam – the Irish equivalent of GCSEs.

It was inspired by Cullen's son Lee, after she spotted a message he had written in chalk on a pavement when he was eight years old.

Recalling the moment she learned the poem had appeared on the exam paper, Cullen - the Meskell Poet in Residence at the University of Limerick - said she could scarcely believe it.

"It was just the most flabbergasting moment. I kind of thought it felt like I was in another dimension," she told BBC News NI.

"A lot of things went through my head. Is this really happening? My own 15-year-old son answering a question on a poem that I've written?"

She said she and Lee hugged before she phoned relatives to share the news.

"I got quite emotional about it, as you would, and my breath was taken away, really. I was just kind of in a state of pleasant shock," she said.

"It was a once-in-a-lifetime synchronicity."

Cullen said she had no idea the poem had been selected for the exam.

After speaking with other poets whose work had appeared on state exam papers, she believes that is standard practice, with the selections kept confidential until the exams take place.

It caused a slight dilemma for Lee during the exam.

His mother said he initially wondered whether to answer the question in the first person, given he had inspired the poem, but eventually decided the examiner might not believe him.

"So he responded in the third person, which was probably quite a wise decision," Cullen said.

The poem was first published as an Irish Times Poem of the Week before later appearing in Cullen's third collection, Conditional Perfect.

It was written during a difficult period in her life.

At the time, her mother was in hospital and she said it felt as though little was going right.

She had been calling Lee in for his dinner when she noticed a message he had written in chalk on a pavement near their home.

The words were simple: "The world is great."

"That message just elevated my whole day," she said.

"It was just what I needed to remind me that there was beauty all around me and lots of wonder in the everyday."

Cullen said she immediately felt compelled to capture the moment.

"And the poem just came out. It literally wrote itself," she said.

Seven years later, revisiting the poem has carried an added poignancy.

Her mother has since died and she is now caring for her 95-year-old father, who recently returned home from hospital.

"I think things come in cycles," she said.

"We do have to kind of remind ourselves of the gifts that life is and the wonders all around us in abundance amid the darkness and the dark times."

Cullen, who is currently working on her fourth poetry collection, said she often returns to a quote from the late American poet and activist Audre Lorde.

"Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence," Lorde wrote.

"I think poetry has a lot to add to our lives," Cullen said.

"We need those positive messages."