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Available for readings and workshops A-Z of north east writers - Keith Armstrong Born in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community development worker, poet, librarian and publisher, Keith Armstrong, now residing in the seaside town of Whitley Bay, is coordinator of the "Northern Voices" creative writing and community publishing project which specialises in recording the experiences of people in the North East of England. He has organised several community arts festivals in the region and many literary events featuring the many aminan poets from all over the word. He was founder of several magazines, and has recently compiled and edited books on the Durham Miners' Gala and on the former mining communities of County Durham and the market town of Hexham. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Federation of Worker Writers & Community Publishers and he is a committee member of the North East of England Labour History Society. He qualified as a Chartered Librarian at Newcastle Polytechnic and was employed in this field at many institutions, before becoming a community worker with Newcastle Neighbourhood Projects (part of Community Projects Foundation), research worker with Tyneside Housing Aid Centre, and then Community Arts Development Worker (1980-86) with Peterlee Community Arts (later East Durham Community Arts). As an industrial librarian at I.R.D., he was christened 'Arts & Darts' , organising an events programme in the firm incuding poetry readings, theatrical productions, and art exhibitions by his fellow workers, as well as launching Ostrich poetry magazine using the firm's copying facilities and arranging darts matches between departments! He has been a self-employed writer since 1986 and he is currently studying for a PhD on the work of Newcastle writer Jack Common at the University of Durham where he received a BA Honours Degree in Sociology in 1995 and Masters Degree in 1998 for his studies on regional culture in the North East of England. He was Year of the Artist 2000 poet-in-residence at Hexham Races, working with painter Kathleen Sisterson. He has also held residencies in many more educational institues. His poetry has been extensively published in magazines on radio & TV. He has also written for music-theatre productions, He won the Kate Collingwood Bursary Award in 1986. He was the Judge for the Sid Chaplin Short Story Awards in 2000. He has performed his poetry on several occasions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at many others. He has read at Newcastle's Morden Tower on several occasions, and at many other venues. He has received an Arts Council of Northern Ireland grant to visit Belfast and Northern Cultural Skills Partnership grants to attend conferences in Bath, Leeds and London. He has toured many countries and he has long pioneered cultural exchanges with Durham's twinning partners, particularly Tuebingen and Nordenham in Germany and Ivry-sur-Seine and Amiens in France, as well as with Newcastle's Dutch twin-city of Groningen. In November 1987 he was the poet-in-residence in Tuebingen for a month, supported by Durham County Council and the Kulturamt, and he has performed his poetry in the city's Hoelderlin Tower and as part of the annual Book Festival. He has arranged for writers such as Katrina Porteous, Julia Darling, Michael Standen, Alan C. Brown and Linda France to join him in Tuebingen. In 2002, he visited New York City to give readings with the aid of a Northern Arts Award and he will be returning there in 2004. He has also won Northern Arts Awards several times. By way of cultural exchange, he has arranged for visits many countries. He often works and travels with folk-musicians from North East England. He has also visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg to perform his poetry with musicians Pete Challoner and Ian Carr. He has recently inspired songs by Jez Lowe and by Joseph Porter of Blyth Power. Though a regionalist inspired by the landscape of his birth and its folk and musical traditions. Contact: Northern Voices, 93 Woodburn Square, Whitley Lodge, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear NE26 3JD Tel: (0)191 2529531 for further information and bookings
AT ANCHOR Birds hurl themselves at the leaping Tyne; I catch them through the evening window. It is cold for the time. My throat is stuffy with poems left unsaid. Weary troubadour I am, swimming with visions of ancient European tours. Now I have landed, with my seagull wings, in Haydon Bridge to honour a famous son. I am lodged in the Anchor Hotel, another lonely night of a whirlwind life: lorries howl around me and I can hear a village trembling in the blinding dark. Restlessly at anchor, I cannot sleep for the ghost of John Martin lighting up my room with dynamic visions and the thunderous clatter of his wild dreams. Stuck in the rut of my own poetry, I force myself to sleep, bobbing by the river, under the fantastic sky. The community lights shine on my imagination, and the screams of swifts make a life worthwhile. July 20004 THOSE HUMBLE PIE BLUES AGAIN Drank too much of Goodnight Vienna, fell from the top of a lighthouse. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry abut that. Took the knickers off a Polish maid, ended up facedown in The End of the World. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Turned up drunk for my poetry class, ended up cockeyed in the Corner House. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Heckled Uncle Tom on the saxophone, felt the tits of a Lesbian. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Laughed at the straight man and pissed on a comic. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Twanged the suspenders of an actress, kissed the hard nipples of a schoolgirl. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Stood to attention at a sit-in, sat on the face of a stand-up. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Jumped off the bridge at a Coronation, swam in a river of whisky. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Swore blind at a military policeman, shot poems in the back of a priest. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Danced on the table at a Chinese, acted myself on a train. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Rolled in the hay with the lass next door, flew in the face of reality. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Balanced my shoes on my head, threw my socks at the band. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Stole the case of a businessman, fell asleep in a play. Well I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Dreamt all day, and wrote all night. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Woke up in the arms of an orang-utang, leapt from a bar on the top of a mountain. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Ended up in a padded cell, read my poems in East Berlin. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. Drank the City of Edinburgh dry, scoffed the whole of your Humble Pie. Well, I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry about that. I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH THE FORTH BRIDGE Strapping girders, lusty arches: the span of my ambition, shore to shore you link me with the old bones, the new ways, the true trains that take me down the path of all my loves. You lift up your wide arms to take in the tide, roll with the shaking wind that whistles in the rushes of the wild banks. You thrill me with your size, your strong embrace; you roar with achievement, you make me proud: I could hug you. Let me take the Queensferry train, slide through you to freedom. The pipes play and the kilts sway to greet us. You are the opening, the gap we streak through to the woolly wilds of Auld Reekie and Bonnie Old Dundee; to the sea of workers’ blood, the red rust of the past that clings and hugs the bones of dead engineers. In the Albert Hotel, tucked up, I hear you moan in the darkness. Naked, I pull back the curtains and see you floodlit in all your entrancing glory. Shine on, shine you crazy bridge. You have my devotion, you have my deepest darkest love. I would climb you stripped; I would feel you breathe in the Firth wind. I give you my heart and soul, I am frail against your depth. You will outlive me, do not mock me, you are superb. You are my outstretched lovely; I will breathe through you, long for you, die for you. Rock me, go Forth and inspire me. |