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Keith Armstrong The Month of the Asparagus: Selected Poems
The Month of the Asparagus spans some thirty years of writing and heartfelt commitment to the craft of poetry. It is a colourful journey from Armstrong's roots to the far corners of the world. He has a strong feeling for ordinary folk in all their complexity and demonstrates this in his lyrical grasp and desire to sing wherever he may be in his incessant poetic touring. This is the work of a rampant internationalist who never loses that local touch, combined with a sensual flair.
Comments
'Well Keith your beautiful poetry melts my heart, you know that don't you?
Good to see you writing about current politics, don't stop, our country may be depressing politically but the things that are happening are still brimming with meaning and young people today especially need to believe that poetry can be powerful.'
Jen Overett
'In another part of the field, another field, let's face it, sits Keith Armstrong's rakish gaff. His poems are rooted in the Tyneside music hall tradition, closely behind which is the august balladry of the Borders. His is an unashamed bardic stance, actor rather than commentator. Throughout the collection, the authentic lyrical note of this northern poet is struck.'
Michael Standen
'I would like to thank you for igniting my interest in poetry. To be honest, from a young age, poetry didn't grab me and I pursued the buzz music gave me, both playing and listening. I have now read the majority of the poems in the two books of yours I have and I am hooked ! It's shameful but I hadn't realised that poetry can grab you like a good book or a piece of music. I can feel the passion and anger and all other emotions you are putting into the poems and I am left in thought afterwards.'
Michael Stephenson
'The book is really strong, sensitive and anarchic in equal measure (much like your good self)'
Poet Paul Summers
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'A traveller with an open mind and without any fear of contact; strange lives, countries and people succumb to his poetic and real incorporation. Keith Armstrong is a bard, too, who has the knack of writing real songs: 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. That he is a friend of many friends, able to open the most amazing doors for his guests, can be taken as read. Keith Armstrong’s songs are capable of opening the hearts of listeners and readers.'
'You're going on twinning and twinning, with Groningen again - you're never alone, sitting at your desk, are you? When do you do your amazing writing?'
Uwe Kolbe, Berlin Poet
'Keith Armstrong is one of the north's longstanding finest poets.'
Liz Forster, North East History
'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 of the Earth. He is one of the best and I hope his voice will be heard more and more widely.'
Adrian Mitchell
'Enjoyed reading the books of poems, cover to cover, on the flights to and from Denmark. Don't know if you'll forgive me if I say that you're a romantic (if an angry romantic!). Poems full of passion (joy or anger or both) and particularly enjoyed the sense of place and community (and the attacks on them!) that many of the poems invoke.
Can we ever recover that sense of belonging and shared values amongst the empire of money-fuelled individualism!! I guess (unfortunately, yet ironically) periods of economic crisis are what bring ordinary people together (but also can lead to the far right getting its dirty hands on things). Let's be optimistic!'
About the Author
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community development worker, poet, librarian and publisher, Keith Armstrong now resides in the seaside town of Whitley Bay. He is coordinator of the Northern Voices creative writing and community publishing project and has organised several community arts festivals in the region and many literary events. He was also founder of Ostrich poetry magazine, Poetry North East,Tyneside Poets and the Strong Words and Durham Voices community publishing series.
He recently compiled and edited books on the Durham Miners’ Gala and on the former mining communities of County Durham, the market town of Hexham and the heritage of North Tyneside. 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. His academic study of Jack Common was published by the University of Sunderland Press in 2009.
His poetry has been extensively published in magazines such as New Statesman, Poetry Review, Dream Catcher, and Other Poetry, as well as in the collections The Jingling Geordie, Dreaming North, Pains of Class and Imagined Corners, on cassette, LP & CD, and on radio & TV. 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.
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 (including readings at the Universities of Hamburg, Kiel, Oldenburg, Trier and Tuebingen), Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Cuba, Jamaica and Kenya.
Keith's Publications:
Books
Magazines
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
CDs
Cassette
The Pitman Poet of Percy Main:The Life & Times of Joseph Skipsey (1832-1903). North Tyneside People’s Centres 1991.
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31.12.11
New from Ward Wood Publishing
30.12.11
27.12.11
THE MAKING OF SAINT CUTHBERT
KEITH ARMSTRONG PERFORMED THE FOLLOWING POEMS IN THE CHURCHES OF BAMBURGH, BEADNELL, NORHAM AND TWEEDMOUTH IN NORTHUMBERLAND:
'I thought the Cuthbert poems were very powerful...Do go on writing and performing like that.' (John Mapplebeck, Bewick Films).
DON’T TRUST SAINTS
I wouldn’t trust Saints,
goody goody two shoe Christians,
they wouldn’t pull me out of the mire
with their do-gooding ways.
I do my praying in the trough,
sweaty trotters grubbing together,
not in anyone’s heaven
but rooting in the soil
for bread.
Don’t get me wrong,
I like a drop of wine
with me nosh,
and I can put the fear of God
in me neighbours
to keep them off me land;
shoot them stone-dead if I have to.
They can go to Hell
for all I care,
whole lot of them:
Poets and Peasants,
Pipers and Plovers.
I just get on with growing me crops,
no time for preaching Love and Hate.
This Northumbrian sun is all I know,
and the gannets swooping over me.
What I can’t touch or feel or smell or taste
is no good to me:
you can’t eat hymns
but I can catch rabbits.
THE BONES OF PROPHETS
The bones of Prophets
rot in this sacred land.
Cuthbert’s spirit soars with the gulls
over the ancient ground.
North Country hearts
beat with the songs and ballads
of missing centuries;
lyrics in the rough wind,
notes in the margins.
The Saints and the Scholars
scribble down the years -
but who can make sense of it all?
Bind up the volumes
of human endeavour
in this vast universe,
let the dust of our thoughts
feed the insects.
Northumberland is in truth
a bleak land
held together by dreams,
fantasies of us all being Saints:
an open slate,
still wet with the drizzle
of the scribe’s pen.
THIS BURNING BEAM
This burning beam
that did for Aidan,
Bamburgh’s finest
fallen King of Northumbria
in ashes.
Palaces of Pretence,
Gefrin on a summer’s afternoon,
basking by the Glen
where Paulinus
baptised us with pelting sleet,
and where the late Josephine Butler
spread her kind smile
for the welfare of wor women folk,
for the goodness of touch.
Oh Edwin oh Oswald,
oh Ida oh Hussa,
carry my head in your hands.
My mighty warriors of Christ,
is that you in the curlew’s cry?
Is that you in the breeze on my face?
Cuthbert’s a hermit crab,
a ‘Wonder-worker of England’,
and I am an empty shell of a man,
talking to birds
because they make more sense of my life.
Listen to me Bede, I’m the Universal Soldier,
I have rubbed ointment
on Cuthbert’s sore knee,
ridden with him across the sheep-snow hills,
and bathed his suppurating ulcer
in red wine.
Light a torch for me
for I am no Saint.
Yet I speak
the Gospel Truth:
Grant to me, Lord Christ, for this pilgrim journey through life,
Your ready hand to guide me, your light to go before me,
Your protection to guard me from evil,
Your peace to rest within me, your love to sustain me,
That through all the joys and sorrows that meet me
I may know the promise of your abiding strength,
Until I reach my final homecoming with you forever.
Commissioned by Berwick Museum and featured in Keith's new poetry collection 'The Month of the Asparagus', Ward Wood Publishing, 2011.
18.12.11
AT THE MINING INSTITUTE, NEWCASTLE
The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Neville Hall, Westgate
THURSDAY 26 JANUARY 2012
THE NEW HARTLEY COLLIERY DISASTER
To commemorate the anniversary of the 1862 disaster a programme of events are planned in the area. Norman Jackson’s talk at the Institute on Thursday 26th January will be supplemented by poems and music, the programme for the evening is:
COMMEMORATIONS IN MEMORY OF THE MINERS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE NEW HARTLEY PIT DISASTER INCLUDE:
14 January 2012: New Hartley Memorial Hall,
JOSEPH SKIPSEY – A COMMEMORATION
Saturday 17th March from 7 – 9pm in the Library.
2012 provides several anniversaries of mining disasters so, to re-balance this a little, we’ll be holding an event celebrating the 180th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Skipsey, the Tyneside Pitman Poet.
Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE. Tel: 0191 232 2201.
DIARY DATES – NOT TO BE MISSED
THURSDAY 26 JANUARY 2012
THE NEW HARTLEY COLLIERY DISASTER
To commemorate the anniversary of the 1862 disaster a programme of events are planned in the area. Norman Jackson’s talk at the Institute on Thursday 26th January will be supplemented by poems and music, the programme for the evening is:
5:30pm Tea and Coffee in the Library.
6:00pm Lecture by Norman Jackson.
6:40pm Questions.
Adjourn to the Library. Buffet and drinks.
7:00pm Launch of a new book about the Hartley Calamity, edited by Keith Armstrong and published by Northern Voices Community Projects with the support of North Tyneside Council.
Keith Armstrong, Catherine Graham and others will read poems and stories from the new book including Joseph Skipsey's Hartley ballad, with singer/songwriter Gary Miller performing Keith’s Hartley lyric and other mining songs and piper Chris Ormston performing his Lament for Hartley and other appropriate tunes.
Copies of the book will be available for sale during the event.
8:30/9:00 close.
COMMEMORATIONS IN MEMORY OF THE MINERS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE NEW HARTLEY PIT DISASTER INCLUDE:
14 January 2012: New Hartley Memorial Hall,
Beeswing in concert. Also featuring Keith Armstrong.
15 January 2012: 11am, Memorial Service at St. Alban's Church.
15 January 2012: 4pm, Memorial Service at New Hartley Memorial Hall accompanied by Ellington Brass Band. The new Memorial Banner will be unveiled.
15 January 2012: 7.30 – 9.30pm Whitley Bay Playhouse, a concert by the Grimethorpe Brass Band.
16 January 2012: 11am, A short memorial service will be held at the New Hartley pit head in the memorial garden.
JOSEPH SKIPSEY – A COMMEMORATION
Saturday 17th March from 7 – 9pm in the Library.
2012 provides several anniversaries of mining disasters so, to re-balance this a little, we’ll be holding an event celebrating the 180th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Skipsey, the Tyneside Pitman Poet.
The event includes Keith Armstrong, Gary Miller(Whisky Priests) and pipe player Chris Ormston, with readings from Skipsey’s poetry and an account of his life.
During the evening, the annual Northern Voices Joseph Skipsey Award will be presented to a deserving local writer.
GREY’S MONUMENT
Grey –
this man and his brain’s conception,
clasped in stone.
Disdainful figure
raised
on a firm dry finger;
proud-stiff
above a time-bent avenue of dwindling lights.
The Earl’s pale forehead is cool and cloudy;
unblinking,
he views us all (as we view him)
in the same old, cold, way –
through the wrong end of a battered telescope,
through the dusty lens of history.
Strip away the tinsel
And this city’s heart is stone.
Keith Armstrong
16.12.11
grand hotel
When completed in 1867, the Grand Hotel, Scarborough, was one of the largest hotels in the world. The hotel's distinctive yellow brickwork was made locally in Hunmanby. The building is designed around the theme of time: four towers to represent the seasons, 12 floors for the months of the year, 52 chimneys for the weeks, and, originally, there were 365 bedrooms.
We yellow
in the fretting mist,
in a cold and massive sea
of worn out efforts.
To survive another dying day,
we group together
in a futile way
to seek out the haunting touch of warmth.
We have finished
with love,
we have come to die
among the lifts and dumb waiters
of a Grand Hotel no longer grand,
gone back to seed.
We choke on our fish and chips,
our battered skin
crumbling like these faded walls.
We are a calendar
of bent and aching hours,
sick with the germs of an English decay.
We hang about,
waiting for the coach
to take us away
and burn us
and our dreams.
Once we sang
in the midst of springtime hope,
our holiday hymns full of a rash desire.
Now we come here
to die in this recession,
on this grim evening,
thinking of the empire lost
and why we fought for it,
things gone wrong
with our poor children
who have inherited
our tears.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
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the jingling geordie
- keith armstrong
- whitley bay, tyne and wear, United Kingdom
- poet and raconteur
