my lady dentist

My Lady Dentist
she fills me
with a desperate longing;
bending over me,
in her clean white tunic,
the smell of her
sets my teeth
on edge;
she drills
a sense of danger into me;
I can only salivate,
eyes popping,
as her dark hair brushes
over my face.
She stabs my gums,
makes my mouth
bleed kisses
on the National Health.
She pulls
and grinds,
and I can taste her
on my lips.
My Lady Dentist,
are all our dreams so false?
Or is it you,
in this anaesthetic haze,
wrapping your rubber gloves around me,
licking me better,
with my blood
on your tongue?




KEITH ARMSTRONG

you never knew

SO DON’T COME TO MY FUNERAL


You never knew
how beautiful I could be.
You never saw
just how blue my eyes were.
You couldn’t feel me fly
and did not sense
the passion in my beating words.

So don’t come to my funeral,
don’t come to my funeral.

You were never there
when my heart broke.
You didn’t pick me up
when my ideals drowned.
You never got drunk with me
in the sunshine of my smiles.
You never felt the love in me.

So don’t come to my funeral,
don’t come to my funeral.

You hemmed in my free spirit
with your overeducated mind.
You trapped the birds in my poems
and caged my strong ideas.
You couldn’t act the fool
for fear you lost your face.
You never risked a dance.

So don’t come to my funeral,
don’t come to my funeral.

You never studied the art of chance,
the sudden surge of love in a stranger,
the golden coin in an Edinburgh gutter.
Your education controlled your heart.
Would you save me as I fell from the sky?
Would you bleed for me?
I sense not, I sense you are cold.

So don’t come to my funeral,
don’t come to my funeral.
I don’t want to see you there.

Because you lied to me forever.
Because you couldn’t play a tune in your poems.

Don’t come to my funeral,
don’t come to my funeral.




Keith Armstrong

paul weller

Recently, there was an excruciatingly hilarious YouTube video of him drunk with his new girlfriend, Hannah Andrews, in Prague. Weller gatecrashes a pub singer's gig, to sing his own songs like, well, a pub singer, and, later, Hannah and Paul end up blotto on the pavement. "Well… whoever had that camera made a few bucks," he shrugs. "I'm not proud of it – my kids were embarrassed – but I don't give a fuck. Plenty of people get pissed and fall over and end up on the cobbles. And it won't be the last time for me."

"People say that if you're still angry at 52, you're not an angry young man, just a grumpy old git. But why should I get to a certain age and go, yeah that's OK? Why do I have to accept everything? If you don't want it, say so and if you want to kick against it, you should do that as well, whatever age you are." He feels happier now he's older, "not out to impress anyone particularly, just doing my thing and comfortable with that."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfEcuthRNDs

thomas spence

The Bristol Radical History Group
Election Special 2010

Thomas Spence
The Forgotten Revolutionary

Date: Wednesday 14th April 2010
Venue: The Scout Hut (Benjamin Perry Boat House), Redcliffe Wharf
Time: 7:30pm
Price: Donation

Speakers: Steve Poole, Keith Armstrong.

Thomas Spence was one of the leading English revolutionaries of the late 18th Century. His tracts, such as The Rights of Man (Spence was, perhaps, the first to use the phrase) and The Rights of Infants, along with his utopian visions of 'Crusonia' and 'Spensonia', were the most far-reaching radical statements of the period. Although sometimes hailed as England's 'first modern socialist', Spence is not easily corralled by later ideologies. He was a mortal enemy of tyranny and what he called 'giantism' of all kinds. Keith Armstrong, Chair of the Thomas Spence Trust, will consider Spence's ideas and their relevance to the present day.

Steve Poole traces the fate, after Spence's death, of this alternative current in English radicalism. The best known histories of English radicalism and democracy explore the struggle for universal suffrage and the reform of parliament. According to these accounts, from the time of the French revolution to the passing of the collapse of Chartism in 1848, the popular radical movement argued, petitioned and campaigned for a more equal share of parliamentary power as a basis on which to build a just society. In so doing, it emphasised radical respectability, moral seriousness and readiness for conventional 'citizenship'. But some were not so sure. Spenceans argued on the contrary that without the common ownership of land as a pre-requisite, the electoral franchise would remain open to manipulation by the economically powerful. Was anybody listening?

Steve Poole is a lecturer in History at the University of West of England. He teaches the history of popular movements in Britain from the mid 18th to the mid 19th centuries and "feels an irrational attachment to the Romantic enthusiasm of the English Jacobins". His book The Politics of Regicide in England,1760-1850 has just been published.

see u soon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRvOEBUszY

he's here, he's there.....!

'When you've lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.' (Hilaire Belloc)

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 likes of
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Douglas Dunn, Barry Hines, Linton
Kwesi Johnson, Katrina Porteous, Ian McMillan, Peter
Mortimer, Sean O'Brien, Edward Bond, Edwin Morgan,

Uwe Kolbe, Attila the Stockbroker, Jon Silkin, Brendan
Cleary, Paul Summers, Ivor Cutler, Adrian Mitchell,
Julia Darling, Jackie Kay, Linda France, Frank
Messina, Ron Whitehead, Benjamin Zephaniah, Liz
Lochhead, The Poets from Epibreren, Tsead Bruinja, the
Poetry Virgins.

He was founder of Ostrich poetry magazine, Poetry North East,

Tyneside Writers' Workshop, Tyneside Poets, East
Durham Writers' Workshop, Tyneside Trade Unionists for
Socialist Arts, Tyneside Street Press and the Strong
Words and Durham Voices community publishing series.
He has recently compiled and edited books on the
Durham Miners’ Gala, on the former mining
communities of County Durham and on the market town of
Hexham. The University of Sunderland Press published his
biography of Jack Common in 2009.

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
Newcastle University Library, Blyth Public Library,
International Research and Development Company
(I.R.D.,Newcastle), Merz & McLellan Consulting
Engineers (Killingworth), Gateshead College and
Sunderland Libraries, 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 (1980-6) 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
was awarded a doctorate in 2007 for his work on
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 Durham, Easington, Sedgefield,
Derwentside, Teesdale, Wear Valley, Chester-le-Street
and Sunderland.

His poetry has been extensively published in magazines
such as New Statesman, Poetry Review, Dream Catcher,
Other Poetry, Aesthetica, Iron, Salzburg Poetry
Review, Sand, X Magazine, The Poetry Business, and
Poetry Scotland, as well as in the collections The
Jingling Geordie, Dreaming North (with Graeme Rigby),
Pains of Class and Imagined Corners, on cassette, LP &
CD, and on radio & TV. He has also written for
music-theatre productions, including ‘O’er the Hills’
(with Dreaming North - Graeme Rigby, Rick Taylor,
Paul Flush, Joan McKay and Keith Morris, with guest
Kathryn Tickell,) and ‘Wor Jackie’ (with Mike Kirkup)
(1988) for Northumberland Theatre Company; ‘Pig’s
Meat’ (1997 & 2000) for Bruvvers Theatre Company; and
‘The Roker Roar’ (1998) for Monkwearmouth Youth
Theatre Company. Other commissioned work includes
‘Fire & Brimstone’ (with Linda France, Paul Flush and
others) (1989) and ‘The Hexham Celebration’ (with Paul
Flush and others) (1992), both for the Hexham Abbey
Festival; ‘Suite for the River Wear’ (with Dreaming
North) (1989) for BBC Radio; and ‘The Little Count’
(with Andy Jackson and Benny Graham) (1993) for Durham
County Council. He won the Kate Collingwood Bursary
Award in 1986. He was the Judge for the Sid Chaplin
Short Story Awards in 2000. In 2010 he appeared on BBC
Radio 4 as part of a documentary on the Tyne Bridge.

He has performed his poetry on several occasions at
the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at Festivals in
Aberdeen, Bradford, Cardiff, Cheltenham (twice at the
Festival of Literature - with Liz Lochhead and with
'Sounds North'), Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne,
Greenwich, Lancaster, and throughout the land.
He has read in Newcastle at the Morden Tower,
Swarley's Club, The Blue Room & The Baltic, at
Durham's Colpitts Poetry, Tees Valley's Write Around &
Writers' Cafe, Leed's Wicked Words, York's Riverlines,
Lincoln's Spoken Word, Liverpool's Stamps, Sheffield's
Antics, Bradford's Grey Sheep Cabaret, Aberdeen's
Springtides, London's Apples & Snakes, at the Universities
of Bath, Durham, Newcastle and Warwick, in Edinburgh
at the Scottish Poetry Library and the Royal Oak
and Diggers venues and in Limerick at The White House.
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.

In his youth, he travelled to Paris to seek out the
grave of poet Charles Baudelaire and he has been
making cultural pilgrimages abroad ever since. He has
toured to Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Poland, Iceland
(including readings with Peter Mortimer during the Cod
War), Denmark, France, Germany (including readings at
the Universities of Hamburg, Kiel, Oldenburg, Trier
and Tuebingen), Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Isle of Man, Spain,
Sweden, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, the United
States, Cuba, Jamaica and Kenya.
His poetry has been translated into Dutch, German,
Russian, Italian, Icelandic and Czech.

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 fact, he has visited Tuebingen over 30
times since he first spent a month there in November
1987 as poet-in-residence supported by Durham County
Council and the Kulturamt, and he has performed his
poetry in the city’s Hoelderlin Tower and, on three
occasions, 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.
He has also won Northern Arts Awards to visit Berlin, Holland

and Prague (with poet Paul Summers). His travels to Denmark,

Germany, Holland and Sweden have also been supported by the
British Council.
By way of cultural exchange, he has arranged for
visits to North East England by poets from Scotland, Ireland,
Germany, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, America
and Russia.

He often works and travels with folk-musicians from
North East England, including Jez Lowe, Marie Little,
Gary Miller and George Welch, and he has written the
lyrics for an album, 'Bleeding Sketches', by folk-rock
band ‘The Whisky Priests’, with whom he has toured
extensively in The Netherlands. 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.

With the support of Arts Council England,
North Tyneside Council and Northumberland Coast Area
of Outstanding Natural Beauty, he recently worked with Berlin
artist Rolf Wojciechowski on a text sculpture which
involved readings on the beaches along the
Northumbrian coast from Marsden to Cullercoats and
from Druridge Bay to Berwick.

Though a regionalist inspired by the landscape of his
birth and its folk and musical traditions, he is very
much a European and his work is much influenced by
writers such as Hoelderlin, Hesse, Brecht, Baudelaire,
Prevert, Esenin, and Mayakovsky.

poem of the month

'Carry on with the good work.'
(Johnny Handle)





















MY FATHER WORKED ON SHIPS


My father worked on ships.
They spelked his hands,
dusted his eyes, his face, his lungs.

Those eyes that watered by the Tyne
stared out to sea
to see the world
in a tear of water, at the drop
of an old cloth cap.

For thirty weary winters
he grafted
through the snow and the wild winds
of loose change.

He was proud of those ships he built,
he was proud of the men he built with,
his dreams sailed with them:
the hull was his skull,
the cargo his brains.

His hopes rose and sunk
in the shipwrecked streets
of Wallsend
and I look at him now
this father of mine who worked on ships
and I feel proud
of his skeletal frame, this coastline
that moulded me
and my own sweet dreams.

He sits in his retiring chair,
dozing into the night.
There are storms in his head
and I wish him more love yet.

Sail with me,
breathe in me,
breathe that rough sea air old man,
and cough it up.

Rage, rage
against the dying
of this broken-backed town,
the spirit
of its broken-backed
ships.






Keith Armstrong

kemmy's limerick miscellany

Kemmy's Limerick Miscellany is a 423 page anthology of writing published by The Limerick Writers' Centre and edited by Denis O'Shaughnessy.


Kemmyʼs Limerick Miscellany is a continuation of the late Jim Kemmyʼs highly successful Limerick Anthology (1996) and Limerick Compendium (1997).
Editor of the Miscellany is Denis OʼShaughnessy, who has written several successful and acclaimed books on Limerick. Denis and Jim were classmates in the years of deprivation of the early 1950s, and both left secondary school shortly after starting to pursue respective trades, stone masonry and printing compositing.

Miscellany is a fitting title for this new publication, as the book, likened to Kemmyʼs Anthology and Compendium, will encompass excerpts from the writing of many diverse writers, poets and historians, novelists and journalists, local and otherwise.

Their impressions down the years of Limerick and its people, its history and lore, culture and sport, is the essence of a publication that will open pages that have long remained dormant, alongside those published in the last decade or so. An attractive miscellany as the title suggests, with something for everyone.

Kemmy’s Limerick Miscellany is also a tribute to Jim Kemmy’s huge literary contribution to the city and recognition of his achievement in awakening interest in local history, the spark of which he and other local enthusiasts helped to ignite so many years ago.



Kemmy's Limerick Miscellany is available online at www.kemmyslimerickmiscellany.com



also available from usual outlets priced €20.00 - paperback. ISBN: 978-09562810-0-5

For further details contact: Dominic Taylor; Tel: 087 2996409; E: limerickwriterscentre@gmail.com
For trade orders or to request a copy for review, please email: limerickwriterscentre@gmail.com

Enquiries to: The Limerick Writers' Centre, 12 Barringtons Street, Limerick, Ireland.
Email: limerickwriterscentre@gmail.com


FEATURED IN KEMMY'S LIMERICK MISCELLANY:

CHE GUEVARA IN HANRATTY’S HOTEL

All the beer mats turned red in Limerick
the night that rebel Doctor Che Lynch took a wander
along Glentworth Street,
pouring
the jingling city
down his throat
on this island of his ancestors.
With a beard
as dark as the comforting Guinness,
he slaked his ruggerman’s thirst,
his well-shaken mix of Irish and Galician roots,
by the night-soaked Shannon.

Thirty months later, he was dead in Bolivia;
smashed bones,
splintered beads
of a revolutionary’s sweat
rolling down the guttter.

Now, I am sending this green poem
to your own heaven, old Che;
for your spirited lapel,
a singing sprig of shamrock
to light up the culture shock
of your long wild hair.

You chanced it in Hanratty’s ‘Gluepot’ bar,
you plunged from the leaden sky
to chat up all this local talent
in the eloquent lilt of a roaring evening.

Mighty ‘Red Bird’,
icon at the bar,
no better or worse
than the barman
who served you
a pint or two of Irish love,
to make your heart
grow even bigger;
to set you up
for your flight
from Limerick,
‘three sheets to the wind’,
rocking across the mighty expanse
of the rolling drunk Atlantic to Havana,
to a certain
martyr’s death.

And, amid the glorious beauty
of trees,
in the murderous jungle
of brutal dreams,
we soaks
will remember you
and celebrate the night
you fell in with us.


KEITH ARMSTRONG


POEM FOR A LOCAL HISTORIAN

(in memory of Jim Kemmy 1936 -1997)

‘Old people mumbling
low in the night of change and of ageing
when they think you asleep and not listening -
and we wide awake in the dark,
as when we were children.’

(Desmond O’Grady)


'It was poignant,
when walking away from the graveyard
that very warm midday,
that the only sound which could be heard
after he was buried
was that of a member of his trade, a stonemason,
simply chipping away
at a monument.'

(Mary Jackman)



In this city, in every town, in every village,
there is this man
dusty with archives
and old snapshots;
this deep fellow
who digs out truths from scraps,
who drinks from a bowl of swirling voices
and makes sense of things,
makes sense
when all else
lies in chaos.

In his dreams,
wars are not dead.
They scream
from his books.
He will not let
the suffering go -
he owes the children that.
There is something noble
in his calling,
in his bearing.
His work is beautiful.

In this particular place,
you can call him 'Jim'.
You can see his face forever
in the autumn leaves,
the leaves of books,
and the dance of history,
a local historian
and carver of tales
so memorable
that every street must value his love:
the love of our people though the ages,
the love of learning,
the search for dignity
that underpins these lanes.

In Limerick,
Jim's imagination still blossoms
and keeps us rooted
in the drift of memory.
He teaches us lessons.
Listen to his spirit breathe
deep as the Shannon.
His voice forever flies
with the power of knowledge.


'Beautiful dreamer wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for Thee.'




KEITH ARMSTRONG

from a swahili phrasebook

Hi Keith,
Robert Lonsdale sent me a link of your U tube video - I thought it was sublime!!! Keep up the good work - it's really good to see someone producing work about the human condition rather than the usual pantomime that passes for poetry/art these days!!!

Kind regards,

Dominic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvIK2W9Z5_Q

armstrong texts at marsden

sweet heart

KEITH ARMSTRONG

SWEET HEART: EROTIC VERSE



In this new limited edition of his verse, Newcastle upon Tyne poet Keith Armstrong, famed for his community-based work in North East England and for his literary exchange work throught Europe and beyond, shows us a new side of himself.

This set of erotic poetry reflects the passionate, more personal, side of his nature, finding the erotic in the back lanes of North Shields, on the streets of Paris and in the beds of Newcastle.

'A subtle observer of beauty whether he chooses to do so from the position of global citizen, mourner, lover, friend or son.' (Paul Summers, Dream Catcher).

‘There are those who tell the terrible truth in all its loveliness. Keith Armstrong is one of them, a fine poet who refuses to turn his back on the wretched ofthe Earth. He is one of the best and I hope his voice will be heard more and more widely.’ (Adrian Mitchell,
Poet).

'A joyous, subversive, delightful, unpretentious, funny, anarchistic free spirit underpins Armstrong's work. It will cheer you up. His poems are technically achieved, funny, witty, touching, and sufficiently various for there to be something to light up every brain which responds to poetry. One way to make the world better would be to give poets as good as Armstrong their due.' (Alan Dent, Editor, The Penniless Press).






PRICE £6.50 ISBN 1 871536 14 6


*ORDERS (ADD £1.50 POSTAGE PER COPY) TO: NORTHERN VOICES,
93 WOODBURN SQUARE, WHITLEY LODGE, WHITLEY BAY, TYNE & WEAR NE26 3JD, ENGLAND. TEL 0191 2529531.

back in groningen - newcastle's twin city

from city poet rense sinkgraven:



http://rensesinkgraven.web-log.nl/

eagleton on durrell

'Like many poets, his verbal sensitivity is in inverse proportion to real human sympathy, a sublimated selfishness evident in his life as much as his work.' (Terry Eagleton on Lawrence Durrell).

armstrong archive @ university of durham

http://library.dur.ac.uk/search/c?SEARCH=Armstrong&SUBMIT=Search

A NEW BOOK FROM NORTHERN VOICES COMMUNITY PROJECTS

FROM SEGEDUNUM TO THE SPANISH CITY

North Tyneside's heritage in words and pictures

Keith Armstrong & Peter Dixon

ISBN 1 871536 28 6




Northern Voices Community Projects, based in Whitley Bay and North Shields, has received significant financial backing from Awards for All and North Tyneside Council to publish this new book on the heritage of North Tyneside. The book looks at a broad range of local historic buildings in words and pictures.



It features poems, artwork and photographs by local people about these unique sites and the material submitted has been imaginatively selected by editor Keith Armstrong and designer Peter Dixon for the book, which also features a sequence of poems by Armstrong and many images by Dixon himself.



From Segedunum to the Spanish City, from St. Mary's Island to Tynemouth Priory, from Willington Mill to Burradon Tower, this is an atmospheric trawl through the vivid history of this fascinatingly diverse area of Tyneside.


Order from:
Northern Voices Community Projects, 93 Woodburn Square, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear NE26 3JD. Tel. 0191 2529531.




Price £7 including postage from the above address or at North Tyneside Libraries, Keel Row Books, Harry Smith's (North Shields), Segedunum, St Mary's Lighthouse, Grand Hotel.

jingle is back in prague in june

"There's no money in poetry but then there's no poetry in money either." (Robert Graves)

common words and the wandering star

Common Words and the Wandering Star by Keith Armstrong

Offer Price £5.95

In this unique book, Keith Armstrong assesses the life and work of Newcastle born writer Jack Common, in the light of the massive social, economic and cultural changes which have affected the North East of England and wider society, through the period of Common’s life and afterwards. He seeks to point out the relevance of Common to the present day in terms of his ideas about class, community and the individual and in the light of Common’s sense of rebelliousness influenced by a process of grassroots education and self improvement. 

“Keith Armstrong has used the available archives and published materials, including Common’s own works as well as those of commentators, to write this biography. He also conducted interviews with a variety of respondents, including some of Common’s family and close friends, and draws on this original material throughout. He has thus assembled an important body of original material which will be of considerable interest to readers.” Professor Mike Fleming

“Keith Armstrong's study of Jack Common is a major contribution to contemporary studies in English literature. Using sociological perspectives in his approach to biography, Armstrong not only reveals much about Jack Common the writer but shows, too, how Common’s work helped him reshape both his and our understanding of the circumstances of his life and of his generation. Through biography, Armstrong has provided a vivid picture of social and cultural change in British society. This is a well-informed book with many innovative characteristics, including the author's use of poetry as a way of exploring Common's creativity.” Professor Bill Williamson  

Common Words and the Wandering Star by Keith Armstrong

Offer Price £5.95

In this unique book, Keith Armstrong assesses the life and work of Newcastle born writer Jack Common, in the light of the massive social, economic and cultural changes which have affected the North East of England and wider society, through the period of Common’s life and afterwards. He seeks to point out the relevance of Common to the present day in terms of his ideas about class, community and the individual and in the light of Common’s sense of rebelliousness influenced by a process of grassroots education and self improvement. 

“Keith Armstrong has used the available archives and published materials, including Common’s own works as well as those of commentators, to write this biography. He also conducted interviews with a variety of respondents, including some of Common’s family and close friends, and draws on this original material throughout. He has thus assembled an important body of original material which will be of considerable interest to readers.” Professor Mike Fleming

“Keith Armstrong's study of Jack Common is a major contribution to contemporary studies in English literature. Using sociological perspectives in his approach to biography, Armstrong not only reveals much about Jack Common the writer but shows, too, how Common’s work helped him reshape both his and our understanding of the circumstances of his life and of his generation. Through biography, Armstrong has provided a vivid picture of social and cultural change in British society. This is a well-informed book with many innovative characteristics, including the author's use of poetry as a way of exploring Common's creativity.” Professor Bill Williamson  

To place an order contact Northern Voices Community Projects, 93 Woodburn Square, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear NE26 3JD. Tel 0191 2529531 email: k.armstrong643@btinternet.com 

Common Words and the Wandering Star: A biographical study of culture and social change in the life and work of writer Jack Common (1903-1968) 978-1-906832-025 RRP £7.95 Offer price £5.95 Plus postage and packing on single copies - UK £1.50. 

Common Words and the Wandering Star: A biographical study of culture and social change in the life and work of writer Jack Common (1903-1968) 978-1-906832-025 RRP £7.95 Offer price £5.95 Plus postage and packing on single copies - UK £1.50. 

back on may 1st!

order now

FROM NORTHERN VOICES:
KEITH ARMSTRONG
HERMANN HESSE IN THE GUTTER
Tübingen Poems (1987-2007)

In this new poetry selection, poet Keith Armstrong from the North East of England reflects on twenty years of visiting Durham’s twin city of Tübingen in Baden-Würtemburg.
Armstrong worked for six years as a Community Arts Development Worker in East Durham and studied at the University of Durham for fifteen years, culminating with his doctoral award in 2007.
In his youth, he travelled to Paris to seek out the grave of poet Charles Baudelaire and he has been making cultural pilgrimages abroad ever since. He has toured to Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Poland, Iceland (including readings during the Cod War), Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Cuba, Jamaica and Kenya.

His poetry has been translated into Dutch, German, Russian, Italian, Icelandic and Czech.

These poems reflect his love of Tübingen and the friends he has made there.

‘Now we are all able to read these poems. We are happy that Keith Armstrong has realised a long nourished idea with this unique publication. It shows the attraction and radiance which Tübingen has with a sensitive visitor from far away and it shows the liveliness of our connection with our English twin County Durham in the domains of words and music.’ Margit Aldinger
(Kulturamt Tübingen)

‘This poet is someone who in his biography and work inseparably unites wit and long gained knowledge, enthusiasm and great talent, pluck and social commitment....This is a man who conquers, with his poems and charms, pubs as well as universities. He has always been an instigator and an actor in social and literary projects, an activist without whom the exchanges between the twin towns of Durham and Tübingen would be a much quieter affair.’ Uwe Kolbe

‘Different poets have different triggers to set off poetic imagination and a main one for him is finding himself in a city street and invoking great spirits who once lived, loved and drank there. This unique publication brings together poems written over twenty years in this 'special town'. I almost think he has earned consideration for a Keith-Armstrong-Strasse - and he is the ideal subject for a civic statue!’ Michael Standen

PRiCE £5 ISBN 1 871536 23 5

ORDERS (ADD £1.50 POSTAGE PER COPY) TO: NORTHERN VOICES,
93 WOODBURN SQUARE, WHITLEY LODGE, WHITLEY BAY, TYNE & WEAR NE26 3JD, ENGLAND. TEL 0191 2529531.

KEITH ARMSTRONG - LIST OF PUBLICATIONS
Books:
Shakespeare and Company. Erdesdun Publications, Whitley Bay 1975.
Giving Blood. People's Publications, Newcastle 1977.
Pains of Class. Artery Publications, London 1982.
Love Poems. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 1984.
Dreaming North (book & LP). With Graeme Rigby. Portcullis Press, Gateshead Libraries 1986.
The Jingling Geordie: Selected Poems 1970-1990. The Common Trust & Rookbook Publications, Edinburgh 1990.
Poets' Voices. With Cynthia Fuller, Michael Standen & others. Durham County Council & Tuebingen Cultural Office,
Tuebingen 1991.
The Big Meeting: A People's View of the Durham Miners' Gala. TUPS, Newcastle 1994.
The Darkness Seeping: The Chantry Chapel of Prior Rowland Leschman in Hexham Abbey. With introduction by historian
Colin Dallison & illustrations by Kathleen Sisterson. Northern Voices & Crowquill Press, Belfast 1997.
The Hexham Riot. With historian Tom Corfe. Northern Voices & Crowquill Press, Belfast 1997.
Old Dog on the Isle of Woman. Cold Maverick Press Legend Series Number 1, Sunderland 1999.
Our Village. Memories of the Durham Mining Communities. The People's History, Durham 2000.
Bless'd Millennium: The Life & Work of Thomas Spence. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2000.
The Town of Old Hexham. The People's History, Durham 2002.
Imagined Corners. Smokestack Books, Middlesbrough 2004.
Out to Sea. With artist Rolf Wojciechowski. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2004.
Sweet Heart: Erotic Verse. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2006.
Angels Playing Football: Newcastle Poems. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2006.
The Hive of Liberty:The Life & Work of Thomas Spence. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2007.
Hermann Hesse in the Gutter: Poems on Tuebingen. With translations by Carolyn Murphey Melchers. Northern Voices,
Whitley Bay 2007.
A Blush in Staindrop Church. Christopher Smart (1722-1771) in Durham. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2008.
Common Words & the Wandering Star: Jack Common (1903-1968). University of Sunderland Press 2009.
From Segedunum to the Spanish City. North Tyneside's heritage in words and music. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2010.
Magazines:
Including: Revival,True Faith, Red Pepper, Poetry Review, Iron, Aesthetica, The Poetry Business, The Ranfurly Review, The Penniless Press, Citizen 32, Morning Star, The Recusant, Kenaz, The New Statesman, Other Poetry, Poetry Scotland, True Faith, Dream Catcher, Episteme, Northern Echo, Newcastle Evening Chronicle, Sand, North East History, Northern Review, X magazine, Poetry Salzburg Review, Ash (Oxford University Poetry Society).
Recent anthologies:
Golden Girl. Poems on Newcastle upon Tyne. Credo, Newcastle 2001.
The Seven Deadly Sins. University of Groningen 2002.
Mein Heimliches Auge Erotic Yearbook. Konkursbuch, Tuebingen 2002.
Red Sky At Night: Socialist Poetry. Five Leaves Publications, Nottingham 2003.
War On War. Sub, Breda, 2003.
Paging Doctor Jazz. Shoestring Press, Nottingham 2004.
Microphone On. Poetry from the White House Pub. White House Press, Limerick 2005.
Paint the Sky with Stars. Re-Invention UK, Rayne 2005.
Miracle and Clockwork. Other Poetry, Durham 2005.
North by North East. Iron Press, Cullercoats 2006.
Revival. White House Poetry, Limerick 2006, 2007 & 2009.
Both Sides of Hadrian’s Wall. Selkirk Lapwing Press, Selkirk 2006.
The Wilds. Ek Zuban, Middlesbrough 2007.
Two Rivers Meet. Poetry from the Shannon and the Tyne. Revival Press, Limerick 2008.
Fishing and Folk. Life and Dialect on the North Sea Coast. Northumbria University Press, Newcastle upon Tyne 2008.
CDs:
Bleeding Sketches. With The Whisky Priests. Whippet Records, Durham 1995.
Out to Sea. With The Ancient Mariners, Jim Mageean, Ann Sessoms. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2007.
Sound City. With Rick Taylor, Bruce Arthur, Pete Challoner, Ian Carr & Bob Fox. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2007.
The Elvis Diaries. With Jim Nunn. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2007.
The Poetry of Percussion. With Bruce Arthur. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2008.
Cassette:
The Pitman Poet of Percy Main:The Life & Times of Joseph Skipsey (1832-1903). North Tyneside People’s Centres 1991.

DURHAM

Cobbled webs of my thoughts
hang around your lanes.
A brass band nestles in my head,
cosy as a bedbug.
I’m reading from a balcony
poems of Revolution.
It’s Gala Day and the words are lost
in the coal dust of your lungs.

Your dark satanic brooding Gaol
throws a blanket over blankness:
a grim era of second-hand visions
aches like a scab in a cell.
And rowing a punt up your Bishop’s arse
a shaft of sunlight on the river
strikes me only as true,
shining into the eyes of all the prisoners
swinging from Cathedral bells.

Old Durham Town, you imprison me
like a scream in a Salvation Army song,
release me soon:

someone
get ready to hug me.






KEITH ARMSTRONG

listen up north

http://listenupnorth.typepad.com/listenupnorth/2010/03/from-segedunum-to-the-spanish-city.html