Keith Armstrong

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
 

BAY WHEEL

Here I come
through Bay Fog,
gold ring glinting
in the Park Road dark.
Seeking a North Sea fortune,
looking for a tuneful lass
to make my aching skin sing
of Wooden Dollies
and Spanish Galleons,
sailing across the old fairground
to sunnier climbs.

There’s this guy in the Rockcliffe
and he looks like a ghost.
He’s as pale as the weather
amd mist drips from his nose.
He’s an Old Waltzer,
my young Uncle Walter,
and his eyes are all talk of the War.
He did his strong courting
in an Old Spanish City
and the rose he seduced
was a Cullercoats’ flame.

Now those cold bones are ready
for the warm Crematorium:
a Memoriam to seconds flown by;
the joy of the candy floss,
the hum of the summer,
the simmer of hamburgers,
and the hot suck of kisses dashed off.

And I am the dome of your past,
the breast of the future,
and I will hug your treasured snaps,
stick your faces in my locket
and spin you down my blouse.
For I have given you joy.
I have thrown you lifelines
and bobbing girls and boys.

And my Bay Wheel
keeps on turning.
My Big Heart
goes on burning.
My Sweet,
my sweet Streets,
my Catalon Whitley,
kiss me.
Kiss me.



GARCIA LORCA IN WHITLEY BAY

‘I’ve come to devour your mouth
and dry you off by the hair
into the seashells of daybreak.’
(Federico Garcia Lorca)

In the rotunda,
your voice lashes out at war.
You
sing
on the crests of the girls,
streaming up the Esplanade.
You
scream under a parasol of gulls,
skimming through the fairground,
on a mission to strangle
flying fish.
Haunting poetry
in the dead ghost train,
the palms of the fortune-tellers,
dust.

Lorca in a broken-down ghost town,
scattering your petals:
Garcia up against the wall
of last night,
eyes shot;
blood from the evening sky,
dripping down an ice cream cone,
down a sweet lass’s blouse.

Saw you on the Metro, Federico,
saw you in Woolworth’s.
Saw you in the crematorium,
on Feather’s caravan site.
Saw you drown
in a sea of lyrical beauty.

Lorca,
like Community,
you are gone;
ideals
torn into coastal shreds.

Still shells
glisten,
lips on the beach
ready
for kissing again
ready
for the re-launch
of childish dreams,                                                           
      KEITH ARMSTRONG
sticky 
with candy floss                                                              
                                                      
and cuckoo spit.
                                                                              
                    The Spanish City, Whitley Bay.