Cork poet whose work featured in Leaving Cert gets 'flurry' of messages from students

Victoria Kennefick said she feels very honoured to have her poem appear in the Leaving Cert exam. Picture: Alison Miles/OSM

A Cork poet, whose work appeared in this year’s Leaving Cert exam, has had a deluge of messages from students, asking "rather sweetly" if they interpreted her poem correctly.

Victoria Kennefick, a native of Shanagarry, Co Cork, now living in Co Kerry, said she feels very honoured to have her poem ‘Guest Room’ from her book Eat Or We Both Starve appear as the 2023 unseen poem on the higher level English paper 2 exam.

“It's been extraordinary,” said Ms Kennefick, who only learned her work had featured in the exam after it ended. 

“I found out pretty much when everybody else did because obviously the whole affair is crowded in secrecy and no one knows anything. 

"Some of my friends are invigilators so when the exam was finished I got this flurry of messages and pictures. It was very exciting and very unexpected.

“I suppose I never really thought about it as a student myself — actually getting in touch with the poet — as when I was doing the Leaving Cert, the poets were not with us.

“It was extraordinary to have this deluge of very funny, very engaged, maybe a little bit stressed out but very interested messages from students from all over the country.

They enjoyed the poem, or it spoke to them in some way or they admired something in the poem, which is really, really lovely.

“Some of them were asking about writing poetry themselves and then also asking, rather sweetly, did they interpret the poem correctly.” 

There’s a little bit of debate about whether the mother in the poem is dead or not, she added.

“I’m trying to tell them the examiners don’t know that either and it's all about the journey of the poem and what the poem tells them about themselves.

“Every single interpretation I’ve read, because they’ve sent me their interpretations, is extraordinary and really well thought out and mature and well-balanced, especially given the time restraints that they are under.

I feel very honoured to have been put on the paper and that the poem has been read by the most discerning cohort of readers and consumers of popular culture in the country and that I shared a tiny little bit of their big journey. It feels very special.”

Ms Kennefick is a graduate of University College Cork where she holds a doctorate in English. She is the current writer in residence at University College Dublin.  Her new book is due to be published in February by Carcanet Press.