doctor keith armstrong - the jingling geordie!

hartley book launch - some comments

2012-01-31T09:02:00.000Z

Thank you a million fold for last night. What a lovely event, and the book is great.

Barry Stone

Thanks for organising last night.

Elaine Cusack

Thanks for last night; also including my piece in the book, I feel very
honoured.

Rachel Cochrane

Thank you for a very enjoyable and moving launch last night. The setting was perfect, the lecture fascinating, and the readings and music rounded off the evening perfectly. I've been left with a burning desire to learn to play the Northumbrian pipes. That music was stunning, particularly the final piece the piper played.

Cheers,

Cathy

Catherine Edmunds | Novelist and Poet

I echo Cathy`s sentiments about the evening, which I throughly enjoyed & the venue certainly added to the gravitas of the event. Wow, what an interior; perhaps one of Newcastle`s hidden gems. I`ve now had a wee bit of time to look through the book; I have to congratulate you (& North Tyneside Council for the financial support) on a job exceedingly well done. I also congratulate my fellow contributors for their sensitive & thought-provoking work. Keep it up & in touch. Best wishes to all...........................Geoff Holland

I echo what Geoff Holland has said - oh, what a night! I think the other readers and musicians agree with me on a well-organised event and the venue was an apt and well-chosen place to perform - balcony readings from the gods of artistry...

Cheers,

Gordon Phillips

Thanks from me too! What an amazing venue!

Chris Ormston

Thanks again, plus I can tell you that Barbara Hadaway and John and Maria loved the night.

Barry Stone

I would like to add my own thanks - it really was a special evening.

The book itself is great and it was amazing to see inside the Mining Institute, hear Mr Jackson's lecture, and then enjoy the readings and music and the Institute's hospitality...the New Hartley Lament on the northumbrian pipes was something I'll never forget.

Thanks for all your hard work!

Pippa Little

I must write to let you know how honoured I felt to be a part of last night's event at the Mining Institute.

The book is a beautiful and heartfelt tribute to all those men and boys who lost their lives in the New Hartley pit disaster, the evening was so moving - the poems and the music so touching.

Please do pass on my sincere thanks to everyone involved. A special thanks to the lovely people I met from the Mining Institute for their warm welcome and hospitality.

Finally, sincere thanks to you Keith for everything you do in support of poetry and community projects.

All Good Wishes
Catherine Graham

Just literally came in from work and want to say what a great night last night was!!! Cynth and me enjoyed it very much, there is just something about Newcastle. We both enjoy being there, the Institute is an amazing place, it knocked us both out!!! What an exquisite place to hold an event, we enjoyed the ride up, the talk by Norman Jackson, the readings the whole evening in fact, so well done!!! Nice one Keith and many thanks for including my poem in your great book I hope I didn't let you down with my reading).

Regards,

Robert Lonsdale

I would just like to voice my thanks also for a very memorable evening. The venue was spectacular and very apt. The whole evening was very well planned, including breaks for refreshments. I was gripped by Norman Jackson's presentation and the launch was a good mix of music, poetry and prose.

Thanks for the evening Keith and everyone who took part, also those who prepared beforehand and afterward. And thanks for including my piece in the book.

Best wishes

Noreen Rees

just read all the comments re thursday evening. john and i would echo everything that was said, we had a lovely evening, the lecture was really interesting and gave a good insight of what happened at hartley, it left us feeling we wanted to know more. the music and poetry were excellent and the pipes well they were something else, especially the tune written for the anniversary of the disaster.

heather wood, easington

Congratulations on organising such a wonderful event on Thursday and for putting together such a beautiful new book of superb poetry and prose - all the contributions are fantastic and it is a book to treasure, so my thanks and congratulations to all involved. Chris's specially composed new piece of music is also superb and apt.

Best wishes,

Gary
Gary Miller Songs

A good evening and congratulations on the book - v. good to see the disaster marked so vividly. Crack on o bard!

Peter Mortimer

JOSEPH SKIPSEY'S 180TH!

2012-01-30T17:43:00.001Z

The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Neville Hall, Westgate

Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE. Tel: 0191 232 2201.

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), Chris Harrison with Skipsey songs, 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.

on the nail

2012-01-28T18:07:00.000Z

Tim Lott

2012-01-28T14:17:00.001Z

Tim Lott: I'm proud of my country – the land of Blake, Dickens, Orwell, and Ian Dury

We all ache to fuse ourselves with something above and beyond us, in which we can take pride

Tim Lott

Saturday, 28 January 2012

I have a white friend from a working-class background who would prefer to wave the St George's Cross than the Union Flag, who strongly supports Scottish independence and who is passionate in declaring his patriotism as specifically English, rather than generally British.

Is he an English Defence League member, a supporter of Ukip, a skinhead thug or simply a Tory? None of the above. In fact, he has never voted anything but Labour. He believes in secularism and the multicultural society. He is a lifelong republican and values literature and the arts.

He is, in fact, not my friend at all. Not because I find his views offensive, but because he is me. For I suffer from the love that dares not speak its name – at least among polite left-liberal society. I love the English people, because I am from England made. I do not love Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland, though I hold nothing against them. I identify with the ancient nation of Shakespeare and Dickens and Orwell and, for that matter, Linton Kwesi Johnson, the Specials, Zadie Smith and Steve McQueen. I draw my sense of self from the historical and present fact of England, not the political construction that is the United Kingdom.

I am not alone in this identification – 40 per cent of those polled in a new survey by the Institute for Public Policy Research this week sees Englishness as more important to them than Britishness; just 16 per cent takes the opposite view. Meanwhile, Alex Salmond argued in his Hugo Young lecture that Scottish independence would benefit England, allowing a revival of a sense of nationhood south of the border.

The IPPR survey comes as no surprise. I think my longing to enjoy a guilt-free sense of positive belonging to my own country is a sentiment whose time has come. This kind of thinking makes many of the left-liberal axis nervous, even though many great radical movements, among them Chartism, Methodism and early feminism, all grew out of specifically English traditions. But the left will have to face a fundamental human truth. We all ache to fuse ourselves with something above and beyond us, which we can take pride in and draw a sense of self-respect from, and that something for most of us, either avowedly or subliminally, is the nation we belong to.

The play Jerusalem, which had people queuing overnight for tickets, speaks loudly to this impulse – the sense of a "real" England, somewhat anarchic, dangerous, connected spiritually with the land. You can link it with Shakespeare's "blessed plot", Blake's "Jerusalem", Orwell's nation of fundamentally gentle tea-loving people with bad teeth, Larkin's melancholic northern towns. It is not right wing or left wing – it is an ancient feeling of belonging to an ancient land and its deeply rooted cultures and customs. This is not about Morris dancing and horse brasses. It is a deep, barely describable sense of a particular way of being.

If we take the decision that we are English and we are proud, instead of British and shamefaced, then what are we to love? We suffer poverty and inequality, racism, social disruption and much besides. All those problems likewise assail Scotland, plus a nasty dose of sectarianism, but they did not stand in the way of a Burns night party I attended this week which was enormous fun, and a specific, joyous celebration of a particular country. How I would love a Larkin night, or a Shakespeare night. But it is not in our tradition. Is colonial guilt the barrier? Plenty of nations, including the US, France and Spain, manage to take a pride in who they are without indulging in that particular historio-cultural cringe.

Once you subtract any political /historical/ military/scientific "pride" – which is more the ambit of the right wing, such as Wellington, Churchill, Brunel, Stephenson, Drake, kings and queens, Nelson and so on – I think what's left over is the England that I, at least, can take pride in. This residue encompasses a nation of extraordinary and disproportionate creative and radical intelligence. And, crucially, this is not "just" history, rooted in Victoriana and the Empire. It persists today and flourishes more than ever.

I am thinking of the endless roll call of great English cultural figures, many from the grassroots rather than the glittering spires. Richard Thompson and the scores of brilliant English folk musicians. A Harold Pinter play, a Mike Leigh film, a Kinks record, a Tony Harrison poem, a David Hockney painting. This tiny nation stands shoulder to shoulder with the mighty United States in our world-class contributions to the arts.

We on the left are conditioned not to see these achievements in the foreground. They appear as background fuzz. We see only pomp and circumstance. This is not my England; this is an England imposed by Tory romantics, who have had an open field in the face of liberal hesitation. Quite apart from its large-scale creativity, the real England is a grassroots mindset – one that sticks its finger up at the world (now most perversely apparent in so-called "chavs", once the proud and bloody-minded English working class). It is a mindset that is indignant and individual and honest and satirical and transcends northernness or southernness. It is non-sectarian. It is creative and vibrant and untamed.

If we can cut free from the constitutional absurdity and unfairness of Scotland – how it irks me that English children have to pay university tuition fees there, but not EU citizens; how I resent their free prescriptions and their cynical MPs' votes on English affairs – all we need to do is to re-imagine ourselves to become great again, but great in a different way from before.

We could inflect the design of the St George's Cross to reclaim it from Tory England. We could make Blake's "Jerusalem" the national anthem and place Ian Dury's remains in Poets' Corner. We could build a George Orwell memorial garden in front of Buckingham Palace.

I am aware that all these figures are white, but a new Englishness, while embracing wholeheartedly the multicultural society, would not be about "equal representation" for all ethnicities and cultures. It is about something more subtle that all are finally subsumed in and accommodated by. Then, at last, we could make a start of turning this most imaginative and clever and individualistic and inclusive and artistic and rebellious country into a place for all to embrace and no longer recoil from. We would no longer be arrogant, insecure, alone and backward-looking.

Britain would be gone, and we would be England, new again. We would be good, not Great, and proud, not ashamed or indifferent. Most importantly of all, that pride would be here and now and alive, no longer echoed through the distorting chambers of the past.

Tim Lott's new novel, 'Under the Same Stars', is published by Simon and Schuster on 1 April

TRASHED ORGAN

2012-01-27T12:27:00.004Z

Description

Come celebrate the post-valentine joy or blues with the salubrious ORGAN GRINDERS who promise a spiffing night of live literature, folk, jazz and of course the coveted port!

TRASHED ORGAN presents the celebrated poet and performance maestro Tim Turnbull alongside North East stalwarts: Kathleen Kenny, Keith Armstrong, Ira Lightman, and Rowan McCabe.

Plus folk styling’s from singer/songwriter Simon Stephenson and supreme jazz from our favourites Fiona’s Jazz Express!

And if that isn’t enough, as usual one lucky audience member will be crowned the TRASHED LAUREATE winning a bottle of port for a fine line of lyrical bliss!

Tim Turnbull
Tim Turnbull is the author of two collections, ‘Caligula on Ice and Other Poems’ and ‘Stranded in Sub-Atomica’ from Donut Press, and several pamphlets as well as two acclaimed stage shows 'Caligula on Ice' and ‘Tim Turnbull’s Tales of Terror’. He is currently working on a horror novel and a series of macabre short stories. His shows combine accomplished poetry of great formal dexterity with a dynamic stage presence and he has entertained audiences of across Britain for over fifteen years. Winner of ‘The Contenders’ Performance Poetry Fellowship in 2006 he has also been nominated for first collection and best poem categories in the Forward Prizes.

Kathleen Kenny
Kathleen Kenny lives and works in Newcastle. Her books include Hole; Keening with Spittal Tongues; and Firesprung. Her latest poetry collection: Travelling Like Eggs, was published in October 2011 by Red Squirrel Press. She works as a lecturer for Sunderland University and as a freelance creative writing tutor throughout the region.

Keith Armstrong
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Keith Armstrong now resides in Whitley Bay and is coordinator of the Northern Voices creative writing and community publishing project. He was the founder of Ostrich poetry magazine, Poetry North East, Tyneside Poets and the Strong Words and Durham Voices community publishing series. His poetry has been extensively published in magazines such as New Statesman, Poetry Review, Dream Catcher, and Other Poetry. In 2007 he was awarded a doctorate for his work on Newcastle writer Jack Common at the University of Durham, which was published by the University of Sunderland Press in 2009.

Ira Lightman
Ira Lightman is a conceptual poet. He makes public art (he invented a new font for the windows of Gateshead Library) and plays left-field ukulele. Some of his many books actually have his name on the spine.

Rowan McCabe
Provides an eclectic mish-mash of beat poetry and lofty English verse, woven into a fully functioning patchwork quilt; a quilt which, though not aesthetically pleasing, could easily protect the carpet whilst re-painting the walls, or dry the dog off after a rainy walk in the park.

Simon Stephenson
Simon is a singer/songwriter and guitarist who plays traditional material. His songs are inspired by the tradition but look towards the modern landscape for inspiration. The guitar playing has echo's of Bert Jansch and the 'Folk Baroque' and he sings in a warm narrative style. Simon is doing a host of small shows ahead of a gig this summer at Beverley Folk Festival as part of the Area 2 stage, where Simon intends to launch his solo CD 'Ghost in the Pines". Simon has also worked with theatre company 'Bubble and Squeek' as musical director and composer for their steam-punk re-imagining of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. Simon also works with fantastic singer and clarsach player Miranda Barty Taylor and percussionist Ged Robinson. Simon also plays occasionally with jazz guitar maestro Bradley Johnston.

8pm start
£4/3 (concessions) on the door

The Bridge Hotel
Castle Square
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 1RQ

imagined corners

2012-01-22T14:30:00.000Z

You might be interested to know that Imagined Corners is 8 (out of 56) in the Smokestack’s best-selling charts:

Katrina Porteous, Dunstanburgh

Martin Rowson, The Limerickiad

Martin Espada, Crucifixion in the Plaza de Armas

Ellen Phethean, Wall

Bob Beagrie, The Seer-Sung Husband

David Betteridge (ed) A Rose Loupt Oot

Jon Andersen (ed) Seeds of Fire

Keith Armstrong, Imagined Corners

Many thanks.

Best,

Andy

Imagined Corners

For over thirty years Keith Armstrong has been taking his poetry to what John Donne called 'the round earth's imagined corners' - giving poetry readings in the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland, Iceland, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, the United States, Jamaica, Kenya and Cuba. At the same time he has been exploring some of the imagined corners of his native North East of England, its sometimes heroic past and its post-industrial discontents.

Imagined Corners brings together, for the first time, poems from all the corners of Keith Armstrong's imagination. It's a trumpet call to those who, in the words of John Donne, are the victims of:

'war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law.'

It is a manifesto for the public ownership of poetry. It's a hymn to a broken internationalism. And it's a beery love-poem for the North East.

Sample Poems

My Father Worked on Ships

The Jingling Geordie

Folk Song for Thomas Spence

Reviews

'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

'If you are old enough to remember Britain before it fell under the malicious spell of those who believe to catch a bus if you're over thirty is proof of failure, it will remind you of gentler, sweeter times... in place of the empty, near-manic, self-congratulatory but superficial and compensatory sensibility of modern culture, Armstrong gives us a sense of what we have lost, how we have gone wrong and reminds us of the dirt and darkness beneath the neon and glitz.'

Penniless Press

'rooted in the Tyneside music-hall tradition, closely behind which was the august balladry of the Borders... the authentic note of the Northern poet.'

Other Poetry

'postcards from an alternative grand tour, journal entries from another, more innocent time, when the world spun more slowly and we had time to befriend strangers and notice things... celebrating people and places, a world of anecdote and adventure, strong drink and life itself.'

Dreamcatcher

Keith Armstrong has worked as a community-arts development worker, poet, librarian and publisher. A founder of Ostrich 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 been poet-in-residence in Durham, Easington, Sedgefield, Derwentside, Teesdale, Wear Valley, Chester-le-Street, Sunderland and the Hexham Races. He lives in Whitley Bay.

His publications include Pains Of Class, Dreaming North, The Jinglin' Geordie, The Darkness Seeping, Poets' Voices, The Big Meeting: A People's View of the Durham Miners' Gala, The Town of Old Hexham, Old Dog On The Isle Of Woman and Bless'd Millennium: The Life & Work Of Thomas Spence. His music-theatre collaborations include O'er the Hills(Dreaming North), Wor Jackie(Northumberland Theatre Company), Pig's Meat (Bruvvers Theatre Company) and The Roker Roar (Monkwearmouth Youth Theatre Company). Several of his songs have been recorded by Durham indie-folk-punk band The Whisky Priests.

from north tyneside council

2012-01-21T14:39:00.003Z

Back in Limerick

2012-01-20T08:09:00.000Z

FEB 2012 'ON THE NAIL' LITERARY EVENING

The Limerick Writers' Centre Presents
Tuesday 7th Feb 2012 @ 8.00pm

February 'On The Nail'Reading
Upstairs@Foley's Bar, Sarsfield St, Limerick(Limericks Newest Live Venue for Music and the Arts)Organised by The Limerick Writers' Centre this popular monthly reading and open-mic continues to attract audiences with a mix of poetry, prose and music.

This month (Feb) our guests are from Newcastle (UK) Dr. Keith Armstrong and Robert Lonsdale.Keith Armstrong was born in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community development worker, poet, librarian and publisher he 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 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.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.

Robert Lonsdale is a poet, publisher and broadcaster. He has written, produced and directed two short films called, "For Those Who Sit And Wait" and "Ya Joking Aren't Ya ?", both of which have been featured in many short film festivalsncluding Teesside University’s “Concept" film night. His latest work is an hour long television drama called “The Let" whichhe has just submitted to the B.B.C.
Everyone is invited to take part in the open-mic after the main event, poets, storytellers, musicians and writers . Even if you don't write you are welcome to bring something along to read. The night begins at 8.00pm and admission is free. So join us on the night and make this event something special.
NOTE: Our special authors book table will again be in operation, so if you want your book, CD's etc publicised make sure you are represented on the table. Contact Dominic Taylor at 087 2996409 to make arrangements.

The Limerick Writers' Centre acknowledges the support of Foras na Gaeilge.
Further information contact: Dominic Taylor 087 2996409 email limerickwriterscentre@gmail.com web http://onthenailreadings.blogspot.com To view videos of previous reading go to: http://www.youtube.com/onthenailreadings

new!

2012-01-07T22:28:00.002Z

MELLY

2012-01-04T21:37:00.003Z

Something sad about clowns;

something thin between laughter and tears.

Pity the dignity, the love and the hate,

the twitching wire between body and soul

and you on that stage,

drunk on rum and borrowed blues again;

unique in the balance you keep to yourself -

never quite losing it,

never quite making it;

bawling out between Magritte and Morton,

playing the droopy-drawered clown

with yourself,

you

do the Melly Belly,

the Ovaltine,

big brash belly laugh blues.

Keith Armstrong

university of durham special collection

2012-01-04T18:02:00.001Z

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ASC Collection description

Description of Special Collection

Collection Level Description: Keith Armstrong Collection

Collection name: Keith Armstrong Collection
Collection code: GB 033 ARM
Date range: 1967-2010
Extent: 2 metres
Language: English, some German, Dutch and Swedish
Created by: Keith Armstrong, poet and writer
Held by: Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections

Contents:
The Collection contains much of Armstrong's work, not just in published form such as volumes of poetry, anthologies, magazine articles and interviews but also recording his long-running and varied performance work with material like posters, programmes, recordings and reviews. It also records his far-ranging collaborative work, both with other artists and notably as a facilitator for others in themed or local writing groups.
The formats of the material reflect the changing means and media in self-financed publishing in the later 20th century, from the co-operative local newspapers such as the Gateshead Street Press through all the changing technologies of copying, printing and publishing to the computer and the internet.
About the creator:
Keith Armstrong was born and bred in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community development worker, poet, librarian & publisher. He has been a self-employed writer since 1986 and completed a doctorate on Newcastle writer Jack Common at the University of Durham in 2007, 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 was Community Arts Development Worker (1980-6) with Peterlee Community Arts (later East Durham Community Arts). He has 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.
His poetry has been extensively published in magazines such as New Statesman, Poetry Review, Dream Catcher, Other Poetry, Aesthetica, Iron, Salzburg Poetry Review and Poetry Scotland, 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 also written for music-theatre productions and 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 2004-5, with the support of Arts Council England, North Tyneside Council and Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, he 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. In 2007 he collaborated on the touring play "The Making of Saint Cuthbert" for which he wrote and performed his poetry including shows in local churches. He appeared again at the Hexham Abbey Festival in 2008, at the Durham Book Festival and at the Cork International Jazz Festival Fringe. His biography of Jack Common was published by the University of Sunderland Press in 2009.
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, 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 Tübingen and Nordenham in Germany and Ivry-sur-Seine and Amiens in France, as well as with Newcastle's Dutch twin-city of Groningen. He has also won Northern Arts Awards to visit Berlin in 1990, in 2001 to pursue his studies of Dutch regional culture, in 2002 to visit New York, and in 2003 to visit 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, Germany, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, America and Russia.
Arrangement:
The collection has been listed in the following categories, although many of the items overlap across more than one group. A few pieces of general biography and bibliography; publications by Armstrong, starting with individually published volumes, Ostrich, and then work with various groups: the Tyneside Poets, Strong Words, Durham Voices & Northern Voices, East Durham Community Arts and Dreaming North. This is followed by a section of material from festivals, performances and exhibitions; periodicals and magazines containing work and reviews; anthologies, creative writing and other books and finally a small separate group of correspondence and items that could not easily be fitted into any of the above.
Provenance:
Presented by Keith Armstrong, January 2007 (Accession Misc.2006/7:91).
Access:
Open for consultation.
Usage:
Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the Sub-Librarian, Special Collections (e-mail PG.Library@durham.ac.uk) and, where appropriate, from the copyright owner. The Library will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.
Catalogues:
Catalogue
Printed material is also included on the library catalogue http://library.dur.ac.uk/search/?searchtype=c&searcharg=ARM%2FA&submit=Search

Index terms

Armstrong, Keith.
Arts -- England, North East.
Creative writing -- Great Britain.
Literature -- England, North East.
Poets -- 20th century.
Literary manuscripts and papers.
Sound recordings.

Date last modified: 14 June 2010

New from Hill Salad Books

2011-12-31T09:05:00.001Z

Keith Armstrong • Splinters

ISBN 978-0-9564827-9-2
148x210mm 96pp paperback 2011 £9.99

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. Adrian Mitchell

Keith is a noted Geordie wordsmith, a bloke whose musings were always radical, though of their place. Folk Roots Magazine

Splinters is a collection of fifty-three poems.

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 ofOstrich poetry magazine, Poetry North East, Tyneside Poets and the Strong Words and Durham Voicescommunity 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 Classand 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.

New from Ward Wood Publishing

2011-12-31T09:02:00.001Z

Home>Poetry Titles>Month of the Asparagus>

The Month of the Asparagus by Keith Armstrong £8.99 UK pp (£9.99 elsewhere)
Release date: July 2011

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Keith Armstrong The Month of the Asparagus: Selected Poems

Hear audio samples of Keith's poetry

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

'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

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!'

Trevor Wishart

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.

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.

Keith's 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: 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). 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. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2010.
Grand Times. The story of the Grand Hotel, Tynemouth. Grand Hotel, Tynemouth 2010.
The Spanish City. Northern Voices, Whitley Bay 2010.
Emergency Verse. Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State. The Recusant, Brighton 2011

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

Golden Girl. 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. 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.

tuebingen again end of march!

2011-12-30T09:19:00.001Z

THE MAKING OF SAINT CUTHBERT

2011-12-27T15:41:00.005Z

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.

AT THE MINING INSTITUTE, NEWCASTLE

2011-12-18T13:52:00.000Z

The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Neville Hall, Westgate

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.

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

2011-12-18T08:30:00.003Z

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

grand hotel

2011-12-16T14:22:00.001Z

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

VIOLINS IN MITTENWALD

2011-12-11T17:16:00.001Z

We can hear the craftsmen sounding

underneath the mountain streams.

They shape the birds calls round us,

they harmonise our dreams.

Each violin’s a lifetime,

it is a blistered thing.

It’s chiselled from the country’sdying,

the years it took to sing.

Listen to the hammers knocking,

breaking up the day.

Each blow’s a sparrow’s heartbeat,

each path’s a lovers’ way.

Sweet heart, the evening’s falling,

there’s a tune upon the breeze.

The craftsman’s hair is snowing,

you can hear the cattle breathe.

Through the laughter and the killing,

the village band plays on.

This song was made for dancing

and a life was never long.

Keith Armstrong

Left in thought

2011-12-09T12:36:00.001Z

'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!!' (musician Trevor Wishart).

'On another note 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).

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POETRY

2011-12-09T05:49:00.001Z

‘Our paths may cross again, they may not. But I wish you success for the future. I don’t think you are a person who is easily defeated through life as you are by nature a peacock which shows at times its beautiful feathers.’

(Margaretha den Broeden)

In the Department of Poetry something is stirring:

it is a rare bird shitting on a heap of certificates.

He bears the beautiful plumage of a rebel,

flying through the rigid corridors,

the stifling pall of academic twaddle.

He pecks at the Masters’ eggheads,

scratches pretty patterns along the cold walls of poetic power.

He cares not a jot for their fancy Awards,

their sycophantic perambulations,

degrees of literary incest.

These trophies for nepotism

pass this peculiar bird by

as he soars

high

above the paper quadrangle,

circling over the dying Heads of Culture,

singing sweet revolutionary songs,

showing off

his brilliant wings

that fly him

into the ecstasy

of a poem.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

readings in dublin, limerick, fermoy - february & april 2012

2011-12-03T15:31:00.001Z

AND SUCH GREAT MEN

2011-12-01T18:46:00.001Z

Dobson and Grainger

were Giants of Men.

Men of Mark,

with huge hands,

they tore this town

in two.

Rebuilt it,

hauled in

rail-lines,

puffed steam

into gleaming

engines.

Miracle workers

they were,

Walkers on Tyne.

So we gather in the tales

of our Great Historians.

But what of the true grafters,

the blistered and

the bruised?

What of the People

buried underground

beneath the library shelves?

What of the quiet men and women

who really built this town?

KEITH ARMSTRONG

paul summers on 'imagined corners' by dr keith armstrong

2011-12-01T18:30:00.001Z

'Keith Armstrong is, as one of the poems attests,

“both happy and sad”. He occupies that tormented space

where most politicised optimists live;a land where

hope and defeat, love and hate, beauty and pain

co-exist relentlessly in an uneasy marriage.The poems

read like postcards from an alternative grand tour,

journal entries from another, more innocent, time,

when the world spun more slowly and we had time to

befriend strangers and notice things. There are echoes

of Baudelaire, of Brecht, Byron and Shelley in some of

the poems. Sometimes nostalgic, poignant reflections

on love, friendship and identity; sometimes the lament

of the defeated. Other times, poems drip with the

bellicose pride of the Jingling Geordie, ringing out

like a challenge. This collection paints Armstrong as

the maturing internationalist leafing through a cache

of dusty photographs, celebrating people and places, a

world of anecdote and adventure,strong drink and life

itself. More importantly though, many of the poems in

Imagined Corners reveal him as 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).

The New Hartley Colliery Disaster 1862 - 150th anniversary

2011-11-29T08:32:00.001Z

THURSDAY 26 JANUARY 2012 AT THE MINING INSTITUTE, NEVILLE HALL, WESTGATE ROAD, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

The New Hartley Colliery Disaster 1862 - 150th anniversary.

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.

Keith Armstrong, Catherine Graham and others will then read poems from the new book commemorating the Hartley disaster, 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.

8:30/9:00 close.

jingling round the world!

2011-11-26T21:52:00.001Z

SUN OVER ST. JAMES' PARK

2011-11-26T14:35:00.001Z

Sun sets on Empire,

a football sinking in the sky.

Dreams are gone,

the kicks we had.

I see their ghosts in The Strawberry night:

Len White and George Eastham,

Gordon Hughes and Liam Tuohy,

Alf McMichael, Jimmy Scoular.

Roaring Boys of one hue or another:

Alan Suddick and Jim Smith,

John McGrath and Dick Keith,

Dave Hilley and Andy Penman.

Stalwart lads from an industrial past,

hold on to those memories.

Golden Balls of light

shine on the surface of The Tyne,

ripple in the mind.

Great times were had

and peanuts tanner a bag.

Swaying lads on the Popular Side,

Oxo down our throats.

Chuck us a cup,

we're thirsty.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

from 'true faith' the newcastle united fanzine for which keith armstrong has been poet-in-residence

PHOTOS: TONY WHITTLE (TOP)
KEITH ARMSTRONG (LEFT)

Bleeding Sketches - still available!

2011-11-25T11:08:00.001Z

This is the Whisky Priests' follow-up to 1994's The Power and the Glory. Bleeding Sketches marked a significant reduction of duties for principal songwriter Gary Miller. Here, the Priests enlisted the literary services of poet Keith Armstrong, whose works were put to music for the entirety of the album. But while this album can be considered a songwriting diversion from previous Whisky Priests releases, in reality it differs only slightly from its predecessors, as Armstrong's lyrics are uncannily similar to Miller's. Both men write insightfully of their hometowns and regional folklore, and offer profound observations of the seemingly mundane. As always, Glenn Miller provides complementary accordion accompaniment, and is joined by bassist Mick Tyas and drummer Nick Buck, as well as guests Jez Lowe on bouzouki and Chuck Fleming on fiddle. ~ Dave Sleger, Rovi

Bleeding Sketches Track Listing

Track#

Title

time

Everybody's Got Love Bites But Me