Jack Common (1903-68)

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Common Words and the Wandering Star

In this unique book, Keith Armstrong assesses the life and work of Newcastle born writer Jack Common, in the light of the massive social, economic and cultural changes which have affected the North East of England and wider society, through the period of Common's life and afterwards. He seeks to point out the relevance of Common to the present day in terms of his ideas about class, community and the individual and in the light of Common's sense of rebelliousness influenced by a process of grass roots education and self improvement.

'Keith Armstrong has used the available archives and published materials, including Common's own works as well as those of commentators, to write this biography. He has also conducted interviews with a variety of respondents, including some of Common's family and close friends, and draws on this original material throughout. He has thus assembled an important body of original material which will be of considerable interest to
readers.'

Professor Mike Fleming

'Keith Armstrong's study of Jack Common is a major contribution to contemporary studies in English literature. Using sociological perspectives in his approach to biography, Armstrong not only reveals much about Jack Common the writer but shows, too, how Common's work helped him reshape both his and our understanding of the circumstances of his life and of his generation. Through biography, Armstrong has provided a vivid picture of social and cultural change in British society. This is a wellinformed book with many innovative characteristics, including the author's use of poetry
as a way of exploring Common's creativity.'

Professor Bill Williamson

Contact:

Business Education Publishers Limited
Telephone 0191 305 5165
Email: info@bepl.com

Keith Armstrong is also now working on a new popular biography of Jack Common for Breviary Stuff Publications

HARTLEY PIT CALAMITY 1862

‘What was it there on Hartley heap, caused the mother and child to weep?’ (George Cooke)

Cold January’s gripped our throbbing hearts and torn them.

Still the sea rolls on.

This earth’s bowells stink of our loved one’s deaths,

the air tastes foul.

Still the sea rolls on.

They don black gloves,

drag out the bodies one by one.

The death-stained faces seem to smile.

Still the sea rolls on.

We are the widows of Hartley,

our men and boys are dead,

our lives cracked open,

damp corpses in our beds.

Still the sea rolls on.

We clutch cold messages from Dukes and Queens,

we wipe the coal dust from our widowed eyes.

The coffin makers’ heavy hammers beat,

keep time with lapping parlour clocks,

and still

the sea rolls on,

still the sea rolls on.

Still the sea,

we are the widows of Hartley,

our men and boys are dead.

Take away your stumbling words and

GIVE US BREAD.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

As performed at Hartley Memorial Concert in New Hartley Village Hall on Saturday 16th January 2010

WORK HAS BEGUN ON A COMMEMORATIVE BOOK FOR NORTH TYNESIDE COUNCIL TO MARK THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CALAMITY

north east

The north east is arguably no less of a bleak hinterland today, entering a new period of marginalisation and decline. Even before the coalition came to power, the signs were not good. As the noughties unwound, people began to twig that the cosmetic overhaul of the Blair years, which saw regeneration projects all over Tyneside, was little more than a superficial makeover, a hollow PR enterprise funded by private-finance initiatives and bolstered by champagne socialist hubris.

• Alex Niven

• guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 June 2011

Thus encouraged, filmmakers produced work from a liberal, middle class perspective for liberal, middle class audiences that was occasionally about, but not for, the working class. Reflective of Blair’s mandate for a classless society - which, paradoxically, meant assimilation into a middle class one - and supported by ministers riding a populist, sanitised wave of ‘Cool Britannia’, films such as Billy Elliot (2000) became well-publicised, roaring successes.

The allegation that liberals view social realist film like intellectual issues in abstract thought raises questions about whose interest a narrative serves. Billy, aspiring to be a ballet dancer against the backdrop of the 1984-85 Miners Strike, must ultimately relocate to the middle class south to live happily. His embourgeoisement implies that working class culture is incapable of nurturing a desirable mode of existence.

Clive James Nwonka, Red Pepper June/July 2011

BOURGEOISIE

My flaming eyes still burn to hate you;

you and your fenced-in little world.

My jaded hands just ache to stab you,

to push in deep the blade of truth.

And in your trimmed back garden land

I see the hungry picking worms,

and in your smart, fat children's faces

the flattened colonies of ages.

Yet when I raise a blood-drop from you

your daughter's slender hand persuades me

that I can't bear to see you bleeding

nor to feel you breathing.

Keith Armstrong

RURAL AND URBAN

You

breathe in a village;

I

a town.

Where you walk,

I run:

your calm, considered, words;

my restless tongue.

Keith Armstrong

in tuebingen

strangeness on the shore

Tamzin Lewis The Journal

Poet Keith Armstrong and conceptual artist Rolf Wojciechowski welcomed the tide into their collaboration Out to Sea, as Tamzin Lewis discovered.

**********

If you happened to see a man shouting poetry into a loud-hailer as North Sea breakers swept over enormous wooden letters positioned at the tideline, you encountered Keith Armstrong and Rolf Wojciechowski.

As part of a year-long project, the writer and artist toured the beaches of Spittal, Low Newton, Druridge, Blyth, Tynemouth and Marsden.

At each site Rolf constructed a 40-metre long poetic text-sculpture made of marine plywood. The wooden words were positioned into wet sand using metal stakes. The text was designed to move, disintegrate and interact with the tide. As waves washed over the separating words, Keith used a loud-hailer to broadcast his poem North Sea Fever, written especially for the project.

The public art project was photographed by Rolf and students at Tyne Metropolitan College. An exhibition of photos, video and poems by Keith, and also writings by artist Kurt Schwitters and writer Algernon Charles Swinburne, toured the North-East. Readings by Keith were linked to folk music, including Northumbrian pipes, at some venues.

Keith, of Whitley Bay, says: "The project was atmospheric and unique. Performing poetry on beaches certainly opened up possibilities, it was quite a surreal experience. I was initially nervous about performing with a loud-hailer in windswept conditions, but the loud-hailer has now become an indispensable tool!"

He adds: "I have lived by the sea for most of my life but I have never encountered it at such close quarters. Working on this project has inspired me to physically connect my poetry with the landscape and seascape of the Northumbrian coastline."

Rolf, originally from Berlin moved to the region seven years ago and lives in North Shields.

He created the wooden sculpture using the word `tideline' as a centrepiece surrounded by lines from Keith's poem North Sea Fever.

Rolf says: "It was a journey and the interaction between the sculpture and the tide was exciting to experience, as the conditions at the beach were always very different."

The exhibition visited St Mary's Lighthouse, Whitley Bay, Globe Gallery, North Shields, South Shields Central Library, Maltings Arts Centre, Berwick, Amble Library & Amble Development Trust Foyer, Druridge Bay Visitor Centre Observation Deck, Blyth Library and Morpeth Library.

It swells and welters and swings,

The pulse of the tide of the sea.

Let the wind shake our flag like a feather.

Like the plumes of the foam of the sea!

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Drifting in moonlight,

the dunes sing their songs.

Wings of old battles

fly all night long.

Cry of the seagulls,

curse of the ghosts;

aches of dead warriors

scar this old coast.

Keith Armstrong

THE SPANISH CITY

The Heart and Soul of Whitley Bay in Words and Pictures This new Northern Voices Community Projects’ publication tells the vivid story of Whitley Bay’s heart and soul, the iconic landmark, the Spanish City. Funded by North Tyneside Council, the book features creative writing from a range of local poets and story writers, illustrated by photographs and artwork, past and present. Editor and poet Keith Armstrong and designer/photographer Peter Dixon have set out to capture in dramatic imagery the atmosphere of the place and, with an eye to the future, they portray the continuing appeal of the Spanish City for local folk and also visitors to the area. This new publishing venture marks the centenary of the historic dome and builds on the large amount of work produced by Northern Voices over the years, following on from the popular ‘From Segedunum to the Spanish City’ North Tyneside heritage volume. ‘Oh! but your lips were thrilling much too thrilling Never before were mine so strangely willing But now I see what one embrace can do Look at me it's got me loving you Madly That little kiss you stole Held all my heart and soul.' (words by Frank Loesser) ISBN 978-1-871536-29-4 price £5 Published by Northern Voices Community Projects, 93 Woodburn Square, Whitley Lodge, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear NE26 3JD. Tel. 2529531. Funded by North Tyneside Council.

Hello Keith

Just to let you know, I presented a copy of Spanish City to Fiona Bruce when she recently came to Delaval Hall with the Antiques Road Show and she was delighted to receive it. I take every opportunity to advertise our wonderful Borough and the talent we have within it.

Regards
Glynis
Cllr & Cabinet lead for Culture

FIGHT TO THE FINISH

The life, poems and stories of an East Durham Miner

This is a moving and passionate account of one man’s extraordinary battle against adversity to raise a family in an East Durham pit village.

Gordon MacPherson's poetry and writing sums up the arduous working conditions that miners struggle under and his own personal battle with emphysema in later life.

Gordon was an ordinary miner who did great things. This book glows with love and human decency against all the odds.

It shows us the power of community and serves as an example for the future of this area of North East England and beyond.

Published by Northern Voices Community Projects, 93 Woodburn Square, Whitley Lodge, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear NE26 3JD.

ISBN 978-1-871536-15-4 PRICE £5 (add £2.50 postage)

Have bought 'Splinters' and it's more than lived up to my expectations. Good work, Keith. I love it! Zenida Mcdonald

Keith Armstrong

Splinters

a collection of fifty-three poems

ISBN: 978-0-9564827-9-2

£9.99 • 96pp paperback • 148x210mm

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 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.

Obituary - Alan Myers - 1933-2010
News | Published in The TES on 8 October, 2010 | By: David Rogers


Although better known in later life as an acclaimed translator of Russian literature into English, Alan Myers spent much of his career as a teacher.

He spent the years between 1963 and 1986 teaching Russian, English and social studies at Letchworth Grammar School in Hertfordshire, which later changed its named to Fearnhill when it became a comprehensive in the mid-1970s.

He was also in charge of the school library and acquired such a vast general knowledge that colleagues would often find books or newspaper cuttings put in their pigeon holes on subjects that had cropped up in the staffroom just the day before. The cuttings he supplied would usually be rustled up from the enormous collection he would keep in shoeboxes that he had crammed into his Hitchin home.

Such an eclectic mind was often put to good financial use, with trips around the town to regularly empty the pubs' fruit machines of their coffers. For Mr Myers, who was affectionately known simply as Myers or Big Al, teaching was a vocation.

A distrust of authority meant he was difficult to manage, but his maverick character inspired successive generations of pupils. For him, school was about teaching what he thought was important and what his pupils needed to know. His obvious intelligence was not scornful of those who knew less; rather, his passion was for sharing that gift.

His teaching to sixth-formers became legendary as rapt boys listened to him talk about subjects ranging from Plato to Marx - all in the same hour, without notes or visual aids.

He was a man who loved books and hacked out newspaper cuttings, but hated modern technology, fearing it would remove the personal touch between humans and literature. But he later put it to good use, setting up his own Wikipedia page and an A-Z list of literary people connected with his native North East. Colleagues would play a game of trying to catch him out with which figures he had missed off.

Born in South Shields, he was a fierce defender of the region and staff at The Guardian newspaper would often receive anonymous postcards pointing out the inaccuracies or omissions about the North East in the published copy. It was only when he wrote to the editor that his cover was broken.

That these were anonymous was typical - such mystery was partly put down to the shyness so often synonymous with larger-than-life characters but was also attributed to his time spent in Moscow as part of his Russian studies at London University. These took him as an exchange student to the Soviet capital, where he met his future wife Diana, who returned to England with him in 1961.

He was often in touch with Russian emigres in London and was fond of telling the story that he was interviewed by both the CIA and KGB in the same week. Perhaps his anxieties about the spooks - he would never answer his home phone, always preferring callers leave messages after the beep - fuelled his desire to be secretive. He once told colleagues he had spent a week sharing a cabin on the Baltic Sea with a murderer - and left it at that.

This air of mystery extended into his later life where his mastery of the Russian language saw him become an acclaimed translator of Russian literature into English. His translations included work by Pushkin and in 1992 his reputation was cemented internationally with an edition of Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

Perhaps his most eye-catching commission was to translate a Russian film version of a Dickens novel into English for an American audience. He later said he was paid for the work in used roubles in a gents' toilet at King's Cross.

His last translations were published by Penguin in 1999 but his version of The Idiot won him a new - and very large - audience as the preferred text for schools and universities in China.

Old ladies in Hitchin might remember him for his ability to stop traffic to let them cross the road, while friends remember him for his 20 years riding a moped without ever having a licence.

But it was his teaching ability that inspired hundreds, as he regarded education as an act of charity, opening pupils' eyes to where their abilities, large or small, might take them.

Alan Myers died on August 8, aged 76.

In praise of … impoverished poets
When mammon and the muse mix, the result – as the dispute at the Poetry Society shows – is fit for the pen of Pope or Swift


Editorial
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 July 2011 23.03 BST

Where is Alexander Pope when you need him? The row which has led to the Arts Council suspending payments to the Poetry Society would be the perfect subject for one of his mock-heroic epics. Or Jonathan Swift, perhaps, who could attempt to untangle the battle between the Big Enders and the Little Enders. Certainly, there is the whiff of 18th-century literary score-settling in the conflict. If only the issue was one of rhyme versus blank verse or a ban on onomatopoeia – something that matters to poetry. In reality, the clash is one of personalities – the society's director fell out with the editor of its magazine – and the immediate cause was money. The irony is that the Arts Council created the crisis in the first place by increasing its grant to the society. Poets, who have never had money, were overwhelmed by the largesse. The society's director wanted to spend it on education; the magazine editor preferred to support established poets. Things fell apart, the centre could not hold, anarchy was loosed upon this little world, and the poet-bureaucrats have now slouched home to Bethnal Green. TS Eliot may originally have been a banker, but as a general rule mammon and the muse do not mix. Poets are impoverished outsiders; poetry derives from longing, not fulfilment. The Arts Council hopes the formation of a new board at the Poetry Society will mark a fresh start for the "poetry sector". This clunky language does not bode well. No self-respecting poet would be seen dead in the poetry sector.

SONG FOR NORTHUMBERLAND

Drifting in moonlight,

the dunes sing their songs.

Wings of old battles

fly all night long.

Cry of the seagulls,

curse of the ghosts;

aches of dead warriors

scar this old coast.

Hover the kestrel,

sing out the lark,

we will be free in our time.

This air is our breath,

this sea is our thirst

and our dreams are sailing home.

Wandering through castles,

their walls are our lungs.

Searching for freedom

in country homes.

Forbears and old cares

blown in the wind;

pull of loved harbours

draws our boats in.

Surge of the salmon

and urge of the sea

leaps in our local blood.

Peal of the bluebells

and ring of bold tunes

reel in all those grey years.

Slopes of the Cheviots,

caress of the waves.

Shipwrecks and driftwood

float in our heads.

Pele-stones and carved bones

hide in these hills,

roots of new stories

in ancient tales.

Dew on our lips

and beer on the breath,

drinking the countryside in.

Bread of the landscape

and wine of this earth,

flows on these river beds.

Drifting in moonlight,

the dunes sing their songs.

Wings of old battles

fly all night long.

Cry of the seagulls,

curse of the ghosts;

aches of dead warriors

scar this old coast.

Hover the kestrel,

sing out the lark,

we will be free in our time.

This air is our breath,

this sea is our thirst

and our dreams are sailing home.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Back to the days of a touch of class - Cookson Country - Shields Gazette

Back to the days of a touch of class - Cookson Country - Shields Gazette

DonnieCam Amsterdam

DonnieCam Amsterdam

live again in neckartenzlingen!

A highly amused audience of young people. Can you imagine better?? Congratulation!
Margit





Keith. So pleased your poetry is for ever appreciated by so many people.
Love,
Zenida.xxx

listenupnorth.com - Durham

listenupnorth.com - Durham

new poetry/jazz project in preparation

CHET - FROM A WINDOW

(in memory of Chet Baker 1929 -1988)

The constant onslaught of Amsterdam

surged through Zeedijk

on that hot night

when a full moon

dragged you

flying to your death.

In your room,

in the Prins Hendrik Hotel,

your clothes lay

neatly folded

in your suitcase,

with your body

a foetus on the street below.

Great white hope

fallen

offstage,

a love for heroin never shaken.

Sorrow was your stuff,

a plaintive,

lyrical anguish,

an excess of gloom

and charm.

This undernourished and parched body,

a singing corpse,

searching for an uncollapsed vein,

an expert driver hating the road

and the bleak hotel of his doom.

Such a foolish love.

Oklahoma farmboy on a golden trumpet,

his teeth knocked out in San Francisco,

become chained to an album a day

for a thousand dollars in cash.

And the Italian you learned in a Lucca jail,

your spirit surviving its deportation,

a lonely and melancholy master drifter

whose pianissimo

touched the soul.

Friday 13th May 1988,

Chet’s heart stopped

and his horn

lost its tongue.

KEITH ARMSTRONG