Grief, Poetry and a New Kind of Masculinity with Darragh Fleming #174
About this episode
Darragh Fleming discusses his journey through grief, creativity, and redefining masculinity with Laura Dowling.
Darragh Fleming went viral last year for a poem — but this conversation is about everything that came before it. The Cork writer talks to Laura about a childhood spent lost in books, a long detour through sport and self-doubt, and the years he spent convinced he wasn't creative at all. At seventeen, Darragh lost his close friend Irby to suicide, and the grief changed him profoundly. For years afterwards he felt almost nothing — a numbness he didn't recognise as depression — while quietly performing the emotions other people expected of him. He's honest about the survivor's guilt that made him sabotage his own happiness, the panic attack that became his rock bottom, and how therapy and journaling slowly led him back to writing. From there the conversation opens out into the work Darragh is known for now: poetry that reimagines what it means to be a man. He and Laura discuss why anger is so often the only emotion men feel allowed to show, how language like "toxic masculinity" can shape the way boys see themselves, and why he believes emotionally healthier men make life safer for everyone. Warm, funny and full of hope, it's also a conversation about creativity in everyday life and…
People in this episode
Host: Laura Dowling
Guest: Darragh Fleming
Topics covered
- grief
- poetry
- masculinity
- mental health
- creativity
- self-doubt
Keywords
- grief
- poetry
- masculinity
- mental health
- self-doubt
- survivor's guilt
- therapy
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Cork
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