DOCTOR KEITH ARMSTRONG & DURHAM

Keith Armstrong was founder of East Durham Writers' Workshop 

and the Durham Voices community publishing series.

He has compiled and edited books on the Durham Miners’ Gala and on the former mining communities of County Durham. He was Community Arts Development Worker (1980-6) with Peterlee Community Arts (later East Durham Community Arts) and 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 has also held residencies in Durham, Easington, Sedgefield, Derwentside, Teesdale and Wear Valley.

His commissioned work includes ‘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 was the Judge for the Sid Chaplin Short Story Awards in 2000.

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. 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.

An archive of his work is held at Palace Green Library, University of Durham.

TUEBINGEN/DURHAM LITERARY/ARTS TWINNING

The partnership with County Durham and the City of Tuebingen in South Germany was established in 1969.  

Poet Doctor Keith Armstrong, who gained his doctorate at the University on Durham in 2007, following on from Bachelor's and Master's degrees there, first visited Tuebingen in November 1987, with the support of the County Council and the Kulturamt in Tuebingen, to give readings and talks there for a period of a month. Since then he has travelled to the city over 30 times and helped arrange for Durham poets, musicians and artists and their counterparts in Tuebingen to visit their respective cultural twins.

A special celebration of the literary/arts links between the cultural partners was held on May 17th 2015 at Tuebingen’s Club Voltaire as part of the Tuebingen Buecherfest.  This was arranged by poet Tibor Schneider, Michael Raffel of the Buecherfest and Doctor Armstrong. Those featured included Gary Miller,singer/songwriter from Durham band ‘The Whisky Priests’, poets Carolyn Murphey Melchers,  Sara Hauser, Anna Fedorova, Yannick Lengkeek and Tibor Schneider and rock musician Juergen Sturm with Mary Jane.

Keith Armstrong will revisit Tuebingen in October 2015 for readings.

He was also in Tuebingen from Tuesday 11th November 2014 to Saturday 15th when he performed his poetry in the legendary Heckenhauer’s Bookshop, one of his favourite bars The Boulanger, at the Carlo-Schmid-Gymnasium (school) and at Weinhaus Beck for a poetry breakfast. He was joined by Tibor Schneider, Sara Hauser, Yannick Lengkeek and Anna Fedorova with Peter Weiss on accordion and Juergen Sturm on rock guitar and vocals.

Before this, he was in Tuebingen from Wednesday 2nd to Saturday 5th April 2014 with artist/photographer Peter Dixon for readings with Tuebingen writers Eva Christina Zeller, Sara Hauser, Tibor Schneider and Florian Neuner at Weinhaus Beck, a school visit and other networking initiatives. This followed on from his visit from Monday 4th November to Thursday 7th 2013 when he took part in a major symposium on the theme of writer Hermann Hesse who lived and worked in Tuebingen from 1895-1899. As well as joining in with the discussions and giving a reading from his poems on Hesse and Tuebingen, Keith met with poets, academics, teachers, musicians, cultural and media workers.  

Sara Hauser visited Durham from Monday 12th to Thursday 15th May 2014 for sessions at the University's English and German Departments  and meetings with local writers, artists and musicians.

So the twinning continues to go from strength to strength. Looking back on things, Armstrong and folk rock musician Gary Miller, lead singer of Durham band the Whisky Priests, travelled to Tuebingen at the end of March 2012 for performances in pubs, cabaret venues and schools where they performed with Tuebingen poet Tibor Schneider who visited Durham in October of that year as part of the ongoing exchange. 

Tibor joined his Durham counterparts for readings at Durham University and at the Half Moon Inn. He was also interviewed on BBC Radio Tees concerning his Durham visit.

Keith Armstrong and Gary Miller returned the compliment with a trip to Tuebingen in March 2013 where they performed again in bars, cafes and schools with poets Tibor Schneider, Sara Hauser and Tuebingen musicians. 

In 2011, Tuebingen rock musician Juergen Sturm jetted in with his music partner Mary Jane at the end of October for pub gigs, including a twinning event in Durham on Monday 31st October featuring Juergen and Mary Jane with Durham folk musicians and poets. That followed on from a visit to Tuebingen in South Germany in early April 2011 by Keith Armstrong and photographer/artist Peter Dixon. The intrepid pair worked together on a touring display featuring Armstrong's poems and Dixon's photographs documenting the unique link between Tuebingen and Durham which was staged initially in the Durham Room at County Hall, Durham in November. Armstrong performed his poetry in cafes, bars and schools and met up with Tuebingen friends, old and new, with the multi-talented Dixon capturing all of it on film. 

This trip reciprocated a visit to Durham in November 2010 by Tuebingen poets Henning Ziebritzki and Carolyn Murphey Melchers, when Juergen Stuerm also took part in a series of pub performances. There was a special event at Clayport Library, Durham City on Monday November 1st with the Tuebingen poets and special guests from Durham, followed by a rousing session in the Dun Cow when Juergen, with Mary Jane, and his Durham counterparts, Gary Miller and Marie Little belted out their lively songs.

In addition to his most recent visit, Armstrong was in Tuebingen in May 2010 with Gary Miller for performances in his favourite Tuebingen bar ‘The Boulanger’ and at a local school. This followed a special guest appearance in 2009 at the biannual Book Festival, a reading with Tuebingen counterpart Eva Christina Zeller and a visit to local schools. Eva visited Durham for readings in schools and at a special event on May 13th 2009 at Clayport Library which also featured poets Katrina Porteous, Jackie Litherland, Cynthia Fuller, and William Martin, as well as Doctor Armstrong and music from the Durham Scratch Choir and Andy Jackson.

A highly successful series of events were held in 2007 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the literary/arts twinning established by Keith Armstrong when he first visited Tuebingen in 1987 for a month’s residency, supported by Durham County Council and Tuebingen’s Kulturamt. Since then, there have been readings and performances in pubs, universities and castles, schools, libraries, book festivals, jazz and cabaret clubs, even in Hermann Hesse’s old apartment, involving poets, writers, teachers and musicians from the twin partnerships of Durham and Tuebingen.

Tuebingen’s music duo Acoustic Storm, poet/translator Carolyn Murphey Melchers and Cultural Officer visited Durham and the North East in October/November 2007. The musicians performed in Durham schools and pubs and there was a special evening in Durham’s Clayport Library to celebrate the twinning, with Keith Armstrong launching his new Tuebingen poetry booklet and performances by poets Carolyn Murphey Melchers, Katrina Porteous, William Martin, Michael Standen, Ian Horn, Cynthia Fuller, Hugh Doyle and musicians Acoustic Storm, Marie Little and Gary Miller. Margit Aldinger of the Kulturamt in Tuebingen and Brian Stobie of the International Department, Durham County Council, also addressed the audience.

For the record, here's a list of those who have made it happen so far:

Tuebingen visitors to Durham since 1987:

Carolyn Murphey Melchers, Karin Miedler, Gerhard Oberlin, Uwe Kolbe, Johannes Bauer, Eva Christina Zeller, Simone Mittmann, Florian Werner, Juergen Sturm, Mary Jane, Wolf Abromeit, Christopher Harvie, Eberhard Bort, Marcus Hammerschmitt, Henning Ziebritzki, Andy and Alessandra Fazion Marx, Otto Buchegger, Tibor Schneider, Sara Hauser.

Durham visitors to Tuebingen since 1987:

Keith Armstrong, Michael Standen, Julia Darling, Andy Jackson, Fiona MacPherson, Katrina Porteous, Marie Little, Ian Horn, Alan C. Brown, Linda France, Jackie Litherland, Cynthia Fuller, Margaret Wilkinson, Jez Lowe, Jack Routledge, Gary Miller, Matthew Burge, David Stead, Hugh Doyle, Peter Dixon.

These events were supported by Tuebingen’s Kulturamt and Durham County Council.

FURTHER INFORMATION: NORTHERN VOICES COMMUNITY PROJECTS TEL. 0191 2529531.

FOR ALL THE WORLD

She took her tunes

to the Queen:

Her Majesty

listened

in the usual gracious way

but she was deaf

to the voices of the worker bees,

simply

tapped

this songstress on the shoulder

as she curtseyed

and touched her forelock,

prostrating her craft

in front of Her Royal Highness

for all the World to see.

All the World

with all its own songs.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

LAMENT FOR A WRITER DEAD

He died,

clinging on to his pen,

at six in the morning,

his usual stint.

He’d run out of anything to write about.

For years, he’d watched the world go by his study,

observing other people’s lives.

All he had to do was fill the page,

disengaged,

lacking in instinct,

without a history,

with no real vision of any particular community.

After all,

he knew he was

a writer,

a describer,

inscriber of someone else’s paving stones.

An expert on poetry,

with nothing much at all

to say.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

OUTSIDE YOUR LONELY WINDOW

My God,

we are

indeed lucky,

in this great and ancient city,

to have,

in our presence,

such a poet as you.

Sometimes,

it even seems

that you

are bigger than us,

with your huge dome

dominating

our history.

Such an immense

and supreme

ego,

larger than the space

in Grainger Market.

And, when it comes to writing up our story,

we, of course,

must turn to you,

with your flawless technique

and structured craft,

turn to you

in our peasant

ignorance.

Since,

though we have folk songs,

they cannot do justice

to the language

like you,

above all,

can.

Perhaps,

next time,

before we break

into song,

we should ask you

to subject our voices

to your analysis.

But then

I don’t think,

in your padded academic tower,

that you can hear us all

singing

in the trees,

outside

your lonely window.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

DURHAM

Cobbled webs of my thoughts

hang around your lanes.

A brass band nestles in my head,

cosy as a bed bug.

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

FOR PATRICIA

Is it the optimist in me

that remembers you for your smile?

Out there in a cruel Northumberland

there is a sun

behind the Army tanks at Otterburn

if you strain your eyes

to face it.

Often it seems

so pointless;

our pathetic scribblings

amongst all the sordid agony

of this poisoned world.

But you made me think

that my little trembling efforts 

were so much worthwhile.

For that, I humbly thank you 

and, when I am down again,

your well remembered smile

will touch me

from the heavens

and make me want to sing.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

a cuban cigar in prague!

FRIENDS OF ST MARY'S ISLAND

Around the low water mark,

kelp beds grow.

Network of rockpools,

boulder shore.

Long-legged bar-tailed godwit,

expert

at finding

mud and sand-living worms.

Seabed of rocky reefs,

shipwrecks dived within and around.

Wrasse and lumpsucker.

Seashore Code.

Remembered rambles,

geology jaunts.

Soft coral communities.

Relic dunes.

KEITH ARMSTRONG