13.10.12
11.10.12
RICHARD STRAUSS
The sky surrounds me.
Why have I walked so tall?
I rest my weary head
on this cold mountain,
milky pastures
wrapped around the hills
like scarves.
Snow falls in my hair,
melts into dandruff.
I am combing this mountainside for you
Richard Strauss
of the long locks,
whose private house dreams down below,
beneath the looming avalanche of Alps.
I have flown this far to touch you,
to scrape a hill with a fingernail,
to walk barefoot on Bavaria.
The military bands still bury the dead.
A raucous bell around your neck,
The music is not pretty.
It howls from the Russian front
and splinters the bones of a Garmisch churchyard.
And now, through the eyes of the Zugspitze, I watch
fresh battles conducted on your beloved soil,
GIs skiing patterns of another war.
In this time, I lie naked all night,
all ears to your drifting music
as it whistles across the valley,
telling the grumbling peasants that
you too were really a lonely man
who kissed the snow,
and Adolf’s freezing hand.
Keith Armstrong
(Published in Blue Max Review 2012)
6.10.12
4.10.12
TIBOR SCHNEIDER
TIBOR SCHNEIDER IN DURHAM, FROM THE TWIN CITY OF TUEBINGEN
Tibor Schneider was born in 1978. He studied Philosophy and German Literature in Tübingen, where he still lives today. He is a member and co-founder of the “Hegel-Circle” at the University of Tübingen. Hegel was a German philosopher who studied in Tübingen during the late 18th century. Reading Hegel’s “Logic” and carrying on with his ideas is the primary objective of the circle, consisting of students, post-docs, and professors.
He wrote his master’s thesis on “Negation In the Works Of Hegel and As a Category In the History Of the World”.
As an author of poetry, Tibor Schneider participated in many poetry festivals in Tübingen and Berlin. At the “Poesiefestival Berlin” 2011, he read together with Tom Bresemann, a young poet from Berlin. In the same year, he was nominated for the “Münchner Lyrikpreis“ (Munich Lyric Award 2011). During the last three years many of his poems have been published in different magazines and anthologies.
Since 2010, he has been co-editor of “trash-pool”, a magazine for literature and art published in Tübingen. So far, the magazine reached three editions and it is available in bookstores in Tübingen, Stuttgart, and Berlin.
By accumulating a variety of extremes and contradictions, which are quintessential for Tibor’s poetry, the city of Tübingen offers him an ideal environment for his creativity. During its history, Tübingen has always been the place to fascinate minds like Hegel, Hölderlin, or Hesse and set the stage for their literary accomplishments.
JOIN TIBOR AT THESE EVENTS:
Tuesday 23rd October. Get together, including readings, with local poets and artists, Half Moon, Durham from 7pm.
Wednesday 24th October. Reading/talk with Tibor and Keith Armstrong at German Department, Room ER 207, Elvet Riverside, Durham University from 4pm to 5.30pm followed by drinks.
TUEBINGEN/DURHAM LITERARY/ARTS TWINNING
The twinning continues to go from strength to strength. Poet Doctor Keith Armstrong and folk-rock musician Gary Miller, lead singer of Durham band the Whisky Priests, travelled to Tuebingen at the end of March for performances in pubs, cabaret venues and schools where they performed with Tuebingen poet Tibor Schneider who visits Durham in October as part of the ongoing exchange. Tibor will join his Durham counterparts for readings at Durham University and elsewhere.
Keith will return the compliment with a trip to Tuebingen in March 2013.
Last year, Tuebingen rock musician Juergen Sturm jetted in with his music partner Mary Jane at the end of October for pub gigs, including a twinning event in Durham on Monday 31st October featuring Juergen and Mary Jane with Durham folk musicians and poets. That followed on from a visit to Tuebingen in South Germany in early April 2011 by Keith Armstrong and photographer/artist Peter Dixon. The intrepid pair worked together on a touring display featuring Armstrong's poems and Dixon's photographs documenting the unique link between Tuebingen and Durham which was staged initially in the Durham Room at County Hall, Durham in November. Armstrong performed his poetry in cafes, bars and schools and met up with Tuebingen friends, old and new, with the multi-talented Dixon capturing all of it on film.
This trip reciprocated a visit to Durham in November 2010 by Tuebingen poets Henning Ziebritzki and Carolyn Murphey Melchers, when Juergen Stuerm also took part in a series of pub performances. There was a special event at Clayport Library, Durham City on Monday November 1st with the Tuebingen poets and special guests from Durham, followed by a rousing session in the Dun Cow when Juergen, with Mary Jane, and his Durham counterparts, Gary Miller and Marie Little belted out their lively songs.
In addition to his most recent visit, Armstrong was in Tuebingen in May 2010 with Gary Miller for performances in his favourite Tuebingen bar ‘The Boulanger’ and at a local school. This followed a special guest appearance in 2009 at the biannual Book Festival, a reading with Tuebingen counterpart Eva Christina Zeller and a visit to local schools. Eva visited Durham for readings in schools and at a special event on May 13th 2009 at Clayport Library which also featured poets Katrina Porteous, Jackie Litherland, Cynthia Fuller, and William Martin, as well as Doctor Armstrong and music from the Durham Scratch Choir and Andy Jackson.
A highly successful series of events were held in 2007 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the literary/arts twinning established by Keith Armstrong when he first visited Tuebingen in 1987 for a month’s residency, supported by Durham County Council and Tuebingen’s Kulturamt. Since then, there have been readings and performances in pubs, universities and castles, schools, libraries, book festivals, jazz and cabaret clubs, even in Hermann Hesse’s old apartment, involving poets, writers, teachers and musicians from the twin partnerships of Durham and Tuebingen.
Tuebingen’s music duo Acoustic Storm, poet/translator Carolyn Murphey Melchers and Cultural Officer visited Durham and the North East in October/November 2007. The musicians performed in Durham schools and pubs and there was a special evening in Durham’s Clayport Library to celebrate the twinning, with Keith Armstrong launching his new Tuebingen poetry booklet and performances by poets Carolyn Murphey Melchers, Katrina Porteous, William Martin, Michael Standen, Ian Horn, Cynthia Fuller, Hugh Doyle and musicians Acoustic Storm, Marie Little and Gary Miller. Margit Aldinger of the Kulturamt in Tuebingen and Brian Stobie of the International Department, Durham County Council, also addressed the audience.
For the record, here's a list of those who have made it happen so far:
Tuebingen visitors to Durham since 1987:
Carolyn Murphey Melchers, Karin Miedler, Gerhard Oberlin, Uwe Kolbe, Johannes Bauer, Eva Christina Zeller, Simone Mittmann, Florian Werner, Juergen Sturm, Mary Jane, Wolf Abromeit, Christopher Harvie, Eberhard Bort, Marcus Hammerschmitt, Henning Ziebritzki, Andy and Alessandra Fazion Marx, Otto Buchegger.
Durham visitors to Tuebingen since 1987:
Keith Armstrong, Michael Standen, Julia Darling, Andy Jackson, Fiona MacPherson, Katrina Porteous, Marie Little, Ian Horn, Alan C. Brown, Linda France, Jackie Litherland, Cynthia Fuller, Margaret Wilkinson, Jez Lowe, Jack Routledge, Gary Miller, Matthew Burge, David Stead, Hugh Doyle, Peter Dixon.
These events were supported by Tuebingen’s Kulturamt and Durham County Council.
FURTHER INFORMATION: NORTHERN VOICES TEL. 0191 2529531
I DON’T MIX WITH POETS
I don’t mix with poets,
They’re so boring.
I don’t mix with poets,
They’re too self-adoring.
I mix with drunk Magpies,
I mix with no lies,
I mix with a bit on The Side.
I don’t mix with poets,
They’re parasitic.
I don’t mix with poets,
They’re soporific.
I mix with nice girls,
I mix with dumb animals,
I mix with wild birds on The Wall.
I don’t mix with poets,
They’re stand-offish.
I don’t mix with poets,
They’re too foppish.
I mix with my fantasies,
I mix with realities,
I mix with the maids of the seas.
I don’t mix with poets,
They’re just sycophants.
I don’t mix with poets,
They get Arts Council grants!
Keith Armstrong
3.10.12
FORTHCOMING
Wednesday January 16th 2013 7.30pm.
Northern Voices Community Projects Annual Award event. Presentation of annual Northern Voices Community Projects Joseph Skipsey Award - and commemoration of the Hartley Pit Disaster with poems and songs. This event will also mark the 45th anniversary of the death of Newcastle writer Jack Common and the 110th of his birth, with readings from his works, poems and songs by local folk group 'Kiddar's Luck'.
Tuesday September 3rd 2013 7.30pm.
Northern Voices Community Projects. A special event to mark 110th anniversary of the death of pitman poet Joseph Skipsey (1832-1903)
with songs and readings.
Events held at Mining Institute, Westgate Road, Newcastle.
29.9.12
25.9.12
10.9.12
9.9.12
AND SUCH GREAT MEN
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
31.8.12
28.8.12
FOR OSCAR
The Government has captured the public's imagination,
jailed it,
court-martialed it, hung, drawn and quartered it.
Still, we will rise,
larklike,
in the tunes of our youth.
We will sing,
spring
Oscar
from prison
again.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
jailed it,
court-martialed it, hung, drawn and quartered it.
Still, we will rise,
larklike,
in the tunes of our youth.
We will sing,
spring
Oscar
from prison
again.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
23.8.12
LIMERICK DAYS
(for Barney)
The greyhounds lash along the track,
as fists bash on the windows of Limerick Gaol.
I am staggering in the darkness of White Wine Lane,
and my path lies lost in the rain.
Let the horses run wildly out of control,
like my brain on too much whiskey and gin.
Let them throw my heart off the broad Shannon Bridge,
I have to die somewhere and this night will do.
I shout my poems out to the odd few who’ll listen,
be it Wolfe Tone or O’Dwyer or Davitt or Griffin.
I am lying dead drunk in the People’s Park,
I am knocked out with girls on poor Punch’s Row.
O Limerick Days you are haunting my soul,
my songs cry out for your old Summer Street.
Make love when I pour you a glass of my verse,
with hope may it set your ancient soul free.
KEITH ARMSTRONG,
Limerick.
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the jingling geordie
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