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Indigenous poet Ellen van Neerven abused by HSC English students

An exam in progress
Ellen van Neerven received the abuse after an exam question asked students to ‘explain how the poet conveys the delight of discovery’. Photograph: David Davies/PA

An Australian poet has become the target of online abuse from high school students after one of her pieces was used in end-of-year exams.

Ellen van Neerven, an Indigenous writer and poet who won the prestigious David Unaipon Award in 2013, became the unwitting target of angry school students on Monday after one her poems, Mangoes, was used as a sample text in the New South Wales year 12 higher school certificate English exam.

The exam question, worth two marks, asked students to “explain how the poet conveys the delight of discovery”.

It prompted a torrent of abuse directed at van Neervan, including some students who contacted her directly on Facebook.

“We were asked to analyse your mango fucked poem - and I’m asking what the fuck was the point of your mango bullshit,” one message purportedly sent to van Neervan and subsequently posted on a HSC discussion group read.

Another wrote “on behalf of the state I would like to say Fuck you and your fucking Mango Poem”.

Some students defended van Neerven, and criticised students for contacting her directly.

But Facebook HSC discussion groups were overrun with criticism of the poet.

Van Neerven has not commented publicly about the abuse, but on Twitter, writers and poets jumped to van Neerven’s defence.

The writer Michelle Law wrote: whoever [and] whatever is teaching children that they can abuse people and think that they’ll get away with it needs to be stopped and changed”.

“In my school talks I tell students that good/bad actions aren’t isolated to school. It’s the ones I can see are listening that give me hope,” she wrote.