|
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
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.
THE BIRD WOMAN OF WHITLEY
She is out feeding the birds,
on the dot again,
in the drizzle of a seaside morning;
the seed
cast from her hand
to the jerking beak of a cock pheasant.
She is alone
in a flock of dark starlings,
scattering crumbs to make them shriek.
She is a friend of spuggies,
gives blackbirds water.
Her eyes fly across the garden
to catch a quick robin,
to spot a wee wren,
to chase a bold magpie.
She is innocence,
she is a lovely old lady;
still giving,
still nursing.
She deserves heaven,
she deserves a beautiful nest
to dream out her last hours
in bird song;
in the rich colours of music,
in the red feathers of sunset.
She is my mother,
she is a rare bird
who fed me beautiful dreams.
Thank you for letting me climb
with the skylarks.
Thank you
for the strength of wings.
BACKWATER
In Hochdorf,
where it always pours,
the girls are drenched
to the skin
and the birds swim
across the ocean
of the sky.
In Hochdorf,
the bleeding rain
teems like history
down the drain
and the ghosts
of marching men
still sip
the blood.
In Hochdorf,
a train
breaks through
the sheets of tears
in old men’s eyes
and handkerchiefs wave
a stream of lives
goodbye.
In Hochdorf,
the raindrops
lodge like bullets
in your brain
and all the wet children
want to sing
and drink the freedom
flooding through
their hearts.
In Hochdorf,
where it always pours.
In Hochdorf,
where it always pours.
IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POETRY
‘Our paths may cross again, they may not. But I wish you success for the future.
I don’t think you are a person who is easily defeated through life as you
are by nature a peacock which shows at times its beautiful feathers.’
(Margaretha den Broeden)
In the Department of Poetry something is stirring:
it is a rare bird shitting on a heap of certificates.
He bears the beautiful plumage of a rebel,
flying through the rigid corridors,
the stifling pall of academic twaddle.
He pecks at the Masters’ eggheads,
scratches pretty patterns along the cold walls of poetic power.
He cares not a jot for their fancy Awards,
their sycophantic perambulations,
degrees of literary incest.
These trophies for nepotism
pass this peculiar bird by
as he soars
high
above the paper quadrangle,
circling over the dying Heads of Culture,
singing sweet revolutionary songs,
showing off
his brilliant wings
that fly him
into the ecstasy
of a poem.
|