Matthew McConaughey, Brianna Parkins and A Lesbian Van 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

Give us a follow, leave us a review, send this to your Ma' and join us :)

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

All Episodes

The Poetry's Dead Podcast

Matthew McConaughey, Brianna Parkins and A Lesbian Van

October 06, 2025 • Ryan Duggins and Leon Dunne

Alright, alright, alright...it was too tempting to type so leave us alone.

How else do you expect us to start this podcast description when we're celebrating the poetry of Matthew McConaughey? Exactly. There are many poems we could have shared from his new books 'Poems and Prayers' but we went with Tips Included. Its a 2 hour listen to complete the audiobook, so create some space in your week and listen to his new book on Spotify asap.

After a week in Benalmadena, Ryan came home to Ireland gasping for a bit of Irish craic and, as fate would have it, that is exactly the subject of Irish Times columnist Brianna Parkins' column in the weekend edition that we picked up on arrival home, so we share her piece.

We have poetry from Norma Gill about believing in the future when grief arrives, a poem about a lesbian date that came with an unexpected twist and we also have our first ever trilingual poem!

Thanks for everyone's support. We would love to see the show expand so if you do like the show, please do review, like and tell your mates.

Yup poetry

Ryan and Leon

Poems from the podcast

Tips Included - Matthew McConaughey

https://greenlights.com/

Brianna Parkins - Good chat? Only when you leave Ireland, you realise it isn't universal - Irish Times Weekend Magazine Column - 27th September 2025

https://www.irishtimes.com/tags/brianna-parkins/

Norma Gill - The Rocky Patch

https://www.instagram.com/_words_to_soothe_/?hl=en

Ola Majekodunmi - On Her Own Terms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn9iQ_9lWi8