Philip Larkin, CMAT and Should We Stop Listening To Men? Artwork

The Poetry's Dead Podcast

Ryan and Leon are delighted to bring you your NEW favourite poetry podcast, exploring the work of poets old and new, with a little bit of craic mixed in.

We'll share our love of poetry every week, taking you on a journey through work from poets you'll have heard of, as well as poets you may not have heard of and even people you had no idea wrote poetry.!

We'll also help with our Agony Poet part of the show where we'll accept any challenge of solving a problem with a poem. Nothing is too trivial or too serious.

Ryan Duggins is a published English poet based in Dublin, with work found in journals Dreich, Flare and his first collection 'You're Never Too Old To Know Better' was published in April '23. He's also performed at Electric Picnic and is a regular on the open mic scene in Dublin

Leon Dunne is a spoken word artist and cornerstone of the poetry scene in Ireland. He is the 2022 All Ireland Poetry Slam Champion and co-founder of Rising Tide, an events company hosting the best spoken word performers the country has to offer out of Pearse Street library

Both of them are more fun than these descriptions would have you believe

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Original music by Matthew Keating
Introduced and co-produced by Lisa Downey

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The Poetry's Dead Podcast

Philip Larkin, CMAT and Should We Stop Listening To Men?

September 22, 2025 • Ryan Duggins and Leon Dunne

We don't agree with CMAT, even though we love her. We think Larkin would have been her biggest fan.

Not yet discussed on the podcast, we share Aubade one of Larkin's masterpieces.

We then talk about that ability of turning the mundane into art a lot on today's show. We also talk about men, and the value of the stories of men. We also talk about the almost zero value in male advice without a story.

Leon reads out a piece from Ernest Hemingway that hammers home the violence and devastating manipulation of man, before we take a look at the many different stories of the people who are claiming welfare with the help of playwright Graham Donlon.

A beauty of a track from Eve wraps up this week's show.

Hope you enjoy it! Stay away from men who advise!

Poems from the show

Craig Doyle - The Last Smoke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf3ZMtOKF5w

Philip Larkin - Aubade

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48422/aubade-56d229a6e2f07

Ernest Hemingway - Hills Like White Elephants

https://anthologydev.lib.virginia.edu/work/Hemingway/hemingway-hills

Graham Donlon - A plastic floor tile one point five metres from the post office counter

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Music by Eve - June Moon