In his youth, Keith Armstrong 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, 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 four
occasions, as part of its 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 Ireland, Scotland,
Germany, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, America
and Russia.
He often works and travels with folk-musicians from
North East England, including 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.
