borders - halluin & menen & mr carissimo

twinning in tuebingen!

FOREVER (WELL, IT’S ANOTHER DAY!)

(for Carolyn & Christoph)


Forever
flooded in my heart,
I am bloodlogged
with the flow of you.
Tuebingen,
you gush
with hard-earned smiles
for me;
you are the sum
of all those leaves
I’ve scraped together
to find a little happiness
in this gorgeous day.
It’s the chance meeting
of a fragile poet
and a fleeting Swabian muse;
it’s a beautiful cat
chasing a singing bird;
a flight of fancy,
a dash of hot wine
with warm friends,
whose tasteful photographs
and gleaming laughter
I will treasure
in my sparkling veins
forever.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

jingle on!

jez lowe on the bridge hotel, newcastle

Mike Harding 20 May 09, 04:17 PM

Jez Lowe writes:

It's lunchtime in The Bridge Hotel, a stone's throw from Newcastle's city centre. The River Tyne slides by below me, the elegant Sage building is looking pleased with itself on the opposite bank, and above me, the High Level Bridge is pointing wearily towards Gateshead, Birtley and the sunny south.

I'm not really a drinking man, but I always pop into The Bridge whenever I'm in town, which is admittedly not very often, as we tend to travel a fair bit. But this is probably my favourite pub in the country. There's been a folk club running here almost continually since 1957, though its status as local folk-central has long been usurped by the majestic Sage, headquarters of the renowned University Folk Degree Course, and by the more grungy Cumberland Arms over in Byker, which will probably be my next stop today.

But The Bridge oozes folk history nevertheless, and it's nice to soak it up once in a while. Long the stomping ground of the much-admired Tyneside group, The High Level Ranters, it was also the place where a young Irishman called Luke Kelly, then a builder's labourer working in town, casually dropped in for a pint of stout one night and heard "folk singers" for the first time.

He went straight back to Ireland and formed a group called The Dubliners.

Fifteen years later, the folk club celebrated its twentieth anniversary, and Pete Seeger came over to help them do it, with a concert at the City Hall, and a floor-spot in the room upstairs here. And I'm obviously not the only one to feel inspired.

Three Christmases ago, I came in to discover Bob Fox and Jed Grimes plotting world domination in the corner, Lindisfarne's Ray Laidlaw discussing drums at the bar, poet Keith Armstrong reading the Guardian on the balcony, my favourite local singer Benny Graham rehearsing his shanty choir in the basement, and a bunch of Northumbrian pipers of my acquaintance doing some secretive deals in reeds and brass chanter-keys over by the mounted photo of Alan Shearer.

It's pretty quiet today though. Only an ex-cast member from Byker Grove and the little man who used to do the weather on Tyne Tees Television register on the thrill-o-meter. There's no folk club tonight either, but the barman thinks that the local chapter of the Bob Dylan fan-club might be meeting here instead. They actually named their Dylan fanzine after this pub, he tells me, and indeed it's rumoured that the Zim himself once came in here, very late one night in the early '60's, and when the building shook as the last train south rattled past on the bridge overhead, even old Bob felt inspired, and penned one of his most celebrated verses!

"The Bridge at midnight trembles," he wrote...

back home!

'hexham tans' poetry event, hexham library 5/5/09 - comments

I thought yesterday was a hoot! Local farmers seemed to have made their way from the Mart, via the pub, to open their hearts in verse!
Thanks for arranging it Keith, it is good to see events such as this prosper.

Best wishes,
Natalie Henderson




It was good and well presented - there was some very personal stuff that folks came forward with.
Credit where it's due you are the lynch pin of those events and some of that wordplay is mighty fine.


Best wishes,
Keith Blackburn

big wheel groningen

groningen - a little piece of my heart

swabian lingo blues

What impulse drags me here?
To this town whose lanes I have grown to admire
Like my grandmother’s face;
To the comfort of Hannelore’s pub,
Where only she calls me, with the deepest Swabian respect,
‘Herr Doktor Armstrong’.
And I don’t speak its language,
And I can’t say how much I love the place
In its own tongue.
This makes me weak,
This struggle with lingo,
This curse of Englishness.
My lazy lips
Are more inclined
To drown in their beer
Than sing their native songs.
But I still love you
And your ducks
And your trees
And your bleeding river
And your trains
And your sloping ways.
For you are the back of my hand,
The hope in my eyes,
A heart as big as mine.
Forgive me
If I can only speak to you
In my poetry.
It’s all I know
I fear,
The only way I can
Truly embrace
All your wonderful complexity,
Your strange and moody faces,
A savage history
And a moon that shines
Over your Rathaus,
Your police station,
University,
And lofty dreams
That did for Hoelderlin
And will one day do
For me.
I know this.
I speak this,
In these lines for you,
From the very depths
Of my kindred soul.





KEITH ARMSTRONG

northern voices presents:

HEXHAM TANS: Tynedale poems

Poetry by Keith Armstrong

With an open slot for local poets


Hexham Library Tuesday 5th May 12.30pm - 1.30pm


Admission free


Tel Gabrielle 01434 652491 for further info


THE DURHAM/TUEBINGEN LITERARY EXCHANGE - A CELEBRATION

Wed May 13th starting 7.30pm

Clayport Library, Durham City

A poetry reading with Eva Zeller from Tuebingen (in German and English)
with poets from Durham and the North East: 

Jackie Litherland, Cynthia Fuller, 

Katrina Porteous, William Martin 

& Keith Armstrong

Music from Andy Jackson on guitar & the Durham Scratch Choir

Admission free
Refreshments


Tel Julie 0191 3864003 for further info

the year of the ox

TALE-PIECES
THE BLOG OF THE BEWICK SOCIETY
SUNDAY, 29 MARCH 2009

THE YEAR OF THE OX
The Whitley Great Ox Festival – Saturday 28 March 2009.
In memory of the 18th century Quadruped immortalised by Bewick in his copperplate engraving of The Whitley Large Ox.

The original Ox engraving was produced for the owner Mr Edward Hall and published on the 10 April 1789. The Ox became a beast of folklore in the 1780s due to its immense size, growing to a height of over 5ft 9ins and weighing a massive 216 stones. It was said to have grazed near the site of the aptly named Fat Ox pub in Whitley Bay before it was walked all the way to Newcastle to be slaughtered.

Keith Armstrong has penned these lines:






THE YEAR OF THE OX


It was 1789 the Year of the Great Ox,
the year the beast got loose in Paris,
when Whitley Bay was sleeping.
The year of the storming,
when John Martin was born in Haydon Bridge,
his heart breaking with painting visions;
the year of the slaying
of old regimes
when royalty hung in the slaughterhouse.
The Ox walked seven days,
like a doomed aristocrat
to have its tallow used to light the night,
to show the way
for the Rights of Man,
to sacrifice its beastly life
to keep a candle burning
and give us hope
and faith and charity,
a glint from God
and a gleam in Thomas Bewick’s eye
as he engraved the swollen moment
for all to see.


KEITH ARMSTRONG

THROUGH THE EYES OF A GREAT OX


Exhausted,
what could you see?
The mob grabbing your life,
and Tom Horsley’s butcher’s axe
hanging over your great spirit
as you valiently strode
the mucky road,
along the throbbing seashore,
through the pestilence of Tyneside,
its filth and flames,
its poisoned air and quack’s potions,
its Geordie beauty and debauch.

Edward Hall thought he owned you.
After a few beers, he thought the very universe was his.
But you, my sturdy fellow, were your own Ox
and could see the folly
of the swinish multitude
as it came to get you
to rip out your guts
and feed the Duke and Duchess,
and all their grasping subjects,
to satiate their appalling vanity.

You had more dignity than them.
You gave up your animal life
for others.
While Eddie Hall he died in pomp,
you, my massive beauty, were unselfish,
a Great Beast
full of love,
the very meat
of life itself
in all its morning glory,
in all its starry wonder;
the wide and beautiful sky
through the miraculous eyes of an Ox.


KEITH ARMSTRONG

THE CONSTITUTION OF AN OX


It had the Constitution of an Ox:

Girth at the belly 10 feet 9 inches
Girth at the loins 10 feet 4 inches
Girth at the shoulders 10 feet 3 inches
Girth behind the shoulders 9 feet 9 inches
Breadth at the hips 3 feet
Breadth at the shoulders 2 feet 6 inches
Height at the fore-crop 5 feet 9 iches
Height at the loins 5 feet 11 inches
Height from the ground to the breast 1 feet 6 inches
Weight 216 stones 8lbs.

That was the Constitution of the Ox.
The track record, shape, volume, build, realm, history, cut and nub of it, the scale of things, the order of the Ox, the full measure of the beast drawn by Thomas Bewick for all of us in awe of it, in a world that never ceases, to astonish.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

return to berlin

MY SISTER TAUGHT PETER BEARDSLEY

My sister taught Peter Beardsley
to look after himself in Longbenton,
to lisp in and out of bother,
to twinkle his feet between desks,
to think with his toes,
to take a pass and craft a cross,
to develop a football brain.
My sister taught Peter Beardsley
to read a ball like a book,
to shimmy on the break,
to skip past bullies,
to have an eye for girls and goals,
to score whenever he felt like it,
to grow into a little star.
My sister taught Peter Beardsley.



KEITH ARMSTRONG


*Keith Armstrong is poet-in-residence for the Newcastle United fanzine 'True Faith'

voyager poets

T.S. Eliot prizewinner Jen Hadfield, Jingling Geordie Keith Armstrong, and John Mackie's Infinite Equation #2

Tuesday 26 May 2008
6.30pm – 8.30pm

Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen [Venue 12]
Admission £5 (concessions free)

A showcase triple-bill of poets who have travelled for their writing and written from their travels. Shetland poet Jen Hadfield won the 2008 T. S. Eliot Prize for a collection that came out of her Canadian explorations. Poet and raconteur Keith Armstrong comes to us from Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear, but his cultural pilgrimages have taken him from Bulgaria to Iceland, from Cuba to Kenya. Infinite Equation #2 is a two-piece ensemble combining John Mackie's lyric and narrative poetry from forty five years of travelling and writing with the virtuoso guitar playing of Michael Moar.

When Jen Hadfield was awarded an Eric Gregory Award in 2003, for her first manuscript, Almanacs, published by Bloodaxe in 2005, she used it to explore her Canadian citizenship, travelling from Nova Scotia to the West Coast, and up into the Arctic Circle on an epic roadtrip, a journey that launched her on her second collection about geographic and emotional badlands Nigh-No-Place. She returned to Shetland to live in 2006. Shetland landscape and language continue to influence Jen's poetry and visual art, and the Shetland community to support her emotionally, socially, professionally.
Nigh-No-Place was shortlisted for the Forward Prize in 2007 and won the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry in 2008.

Keith Armstrong was born and bred in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community development worker, poet, librarian and publisher. He was Year of the Artist 2000 Poet-in-Residence at Hexham Races.
He has recently compiled and edited books on the Durham Miners Gala and on the former mining communities of County Durham and the market town of Hexham.
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. His poetry has been translated into Dutch, German, Russian, Italian, Icelandic and Czech.

John Mackie has written for, amongst others, David Bowie, Brian Auger, R. J. Bunn of Roxy Music, the jazz-funk legend Brian Auger, Jim Mullen, and the award winning composers Howard Skempton and Dave Smith, and has been publishing poetry and song lyrics since 1965.

A consummate musician, Michael Moar is a master of many genres. His first love is classical guitar, and he has played in a variety of rock and country bands in North-East Scotland for many years. Currently studying for a degree in music at the University of Aberdeen, he is fine tuning his compositional skills.

Promoted by
Spring Tides Poetry Group
Wordfringe
Supported by
Peacock Visual Arts
Scottish Book Trust
Aberdeen City Council

my home city

patrick kavanagh

“It is impossible to read the daily press without being diverted from reality. You are full of enthusiasm for the eternal verities -- life is worth living, and then out of sinful curiosity you open a newspaper. You are disillusioned and wrecked.”


     
“To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime's experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields - these are as much as a man can fully experience.”

guided by love

"I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love." - Frank O'Hara

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” - Albert Einstein

“... a true revolutionary is guided by love......We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity is transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.” - Che Guevara

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” - John Wesley

armstrong returns to tuebingen

Do 21.5.2009, 20.30h, Boulanger, Collegiumsgasse 2, Tuebingen
BACK IN THE BOULANGER
POETRY READING BY EVA ZELLER AND KEITH ARMSTRONG
with Christian Roch on Uilleann Pipes and whistle

swan song

SWAN SONG

Oh you float on canals
on a head of Amstel beer.
You keep yourself white in a dirty town,
watching the tulips drown.
You skim past the red lights and the bulb-fields of traffic;
gracefully bend your vase-like neck
under a low Dutch joke.
The tall, slim houses seem to stoop
towards you;
you warn them off,
with a thrust of your beak.
You feed off tourists
on floodlit transparencies
broken by rippling houseboats.
You stay drifting in memories of the Indies;
a small piece of momentary beauty,
prettier than Amsterdam,
more shapely than Holland;
a true Swan
of the World.



KEITH ARMSTRONG

parting is such sweet sorrow

GRONINGEN GUITARS


Oh the groaning
of Groningen guitars,
the twang
of its gutters
and bars,
rolling of memory,
filling up dreams
of canals,
cracking with ice.
Gestapo days
and dead poets
swimming
in music;
the roaring days,
the roaring boys
and gorgeous girls
strummed away,
dancing
out of my eyes
into graveyards
of songs sung.
Spilt notes
and words
weeping for forgiveness
and joy.


KEITH ARMSTRONG

oeteldonk carnival 2009

The Oeteldonk carnival is based on the old medieval tradition of the upside down world. It is a festival of crazy jesting and parody. Oeteldonk came into being in 1882 as a result of various attempts by both secular and religious authorities to suppress and forbid the characteristic carnival celebrations of the city of Den Bosch
('s-Hertogenbosch).
Carnival was celebrated in 's-Hertogenbosch as far back as the Middle Ages. Three days of partying with dancing, singing, eating and drinking before starting the forty day period of fasting. In 1629 Frederik Hendrik conquered the city with his government troops. One of the consequences of this was that public participation in the Roman Catholic religion was forbidden. This included celebration of the Catholic festival of Fasting Eve, which the reformed Protestant city government saw as "papist misbehaviour". Despite this, the festival was carried on, but in secrecy.
A new era dawned at the end of the 18th Century when with the arrival of the French, the Catholics regained their freedom. It transpired that the citizens of Den Bosch had carnival in their blood. This was given added impulse by glass blowers from Liege, who worked in the city as "guest workers" in the first half of the 19th Century. They knew street carnival celebrations from their own city and introduced it to Den Bosch. There was further stimulation, born out of necessity, from the Sociëteit Casino (Casino Society or Club). Which following the building of expensive premises on the Papenhulst, was short of funds. The society felt that it could make up its financial deficit by holding public balls, among other things. From then on other societies and clubs followed their lucrative example.
As the celebration became more widespread, behaviour became excessive. Particularly in the working class areas, where the three day festival was a welcome relief in a drab existence, there were many fights. A feature of carnival in those days was the "filthy Sunday". On the afternoon of the first day of carnival, after a church service, people went to the market from all corners of the town clad in stained clothing. There they shocked the assembled public by their performances. A well known example is that of a completely disguised person, sitting on the terrace of the Central Hotel, eating a "sausage" out of a chamber pot, and dipping it in mustard. These "filthy" people also included many "respectable" citizens in disguise. These "revels" soon met with the opposition of the bourgeoisie. Repeated requests to ban the festival from the city, were turned down because of the commercial and social interests involved.
When the church started to interfere in 1881, in the person of the Bishop Monsignor A. Godschalk, this led to a number of the wealthier citizens to take measures to protect this peoples" festival. They gathered in the café Plaats Roijaal, then located in the street Behind the Town Hall, to forge a plan which would keep everyone happy. The aim was to preserve the festival by raising the level of the entertainment. They came up with the idea of Oeteldonk. 's-Hertogenbosch, a very worldly city at the time, would be renamed and become the village of Oeteldonk for the three days of carnival. Every inhabitant of the city would be either a farmer or a wench. Naturally, there was a joke "mayor" with one or more councillors or assessors and a joke "council". In this peaceful festival village a solitary rural constable was all that was needed, and as the programme indicated he was there more to keep the womenfolk away from the city fathers, than to keep the peace. All of this was of course, in the style of carnival, a parody on the established society. A parody of the council meetings of the time, in which council politics were satirised and heavily criticised, fitted perfectly in this.
On February 20th 1882, the newly appointed mayor Peer van den Mugheuvel, entered his "rural village Oeteldonk" for the first time. On October 1st of that same year, the Oeteldonksche Club was set up to further develop and guide the initiative that had been taken. The following year another new element was added, namely the visit of H.R.H. Prince Amadeiro Ricosto di Carnavallo, Knight of the Ksam, Lord and Master of Oeteldonk and even the surrounding water-free marshes and sandy deserts etc. etc. A large procession with floats accompanied him on his entry. In this way, the Oeteldonksche Club set the example of how the eve of fasting could be celebrated in a dignified way. Slowly but surely the club succeeded in its aims: the excesses disappeared.
The Oeteldonksche Club has fostered and nourished the Oeteldonk Carnival for more than a century now. New elements are continually added and changed. Despite regular setbacks such as prohibitory orders and war situations, the OCv1882 has managed time and time again, always with the support of the Oeteldonkers themselves, to breathe new life into the festival while maintaining the old values and traditions. The set-up of the festival, as it was started in 1882, has never been negatively affected, and remains today. The rustic, folksy character is essential to the Oeteldonk carnival, where its royal ruler, Prince Amadeiro is sated in an exuberant way when he comes to honour his "pleasure garden" the Kingdom of Oeteldonk with his presence for three days. This spectacle takes place in Oeteldonk, unlike the "Rhineland" type of carnival celebrations which take place everywhere else with great pomp and circumstance.

at marsden