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Social EventsKEITH ARMSTRONGBorn in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community development worker, poet, librarian and publisher, Keith Armstrong, now residing in the seaside town of Whitley Bay, 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 has organised several community arts festivals in the region and many literary events featuring the likes of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Douglas Dunn, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Katrina Porteous, Ian McMillan, Edward Bond, Edwin Morgan, Uwe Kolbe, Attila the Stockbroker, Adrian Mitchell, Jackie Kay, Frank Messina, Benjamin Zephaniah and Liz Lochhead. He was founder of Ostrich poetry 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 ommunity publishing series. 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. He qualified as a Chartered Librarian at Newcastle Polytechnic and was employed in this field at Newcastle University Library, Blyth Public Library, International Research and Development Company (I.R.D.,Newcastle), Merz & McLellan Consulting Engineers (Killingworth), Gateshead College and Sunderland Libraries, before becoming a community worker with Newcastle Neighbourhood Projects (part of Community Projects Foundation), research worker with Tyneside Housing Aid Centre, and then Community Arts Development Worker (1980-6) with Peterlee Community Arts (later East Durham Community Arts). As an industrial librarian at I.R.D., he was christened 'Arts & Darts', organising an events programme in the firm incuding poetry readings, theatrical productions, and art exhibitions by his fellow workers, as well as launching Ostrich poetry magazine using the firm's copying facilities and arranging darts matches between departments! He has been a self-employed writer since 1986 and he is currently studying for a PhD on the work of Newcastle writer Jack Common at the University of Durham where he received a BA Honours Degree in Sociology in 1995 and Masters Degree in 1998 for his studies on regional culture in the North East of England. He was Year of the Artist 2000 poet-in-residence at Hexham Races, working with painter Kathleen Sisterson. He has also held residencies in Durham, Easington, Sedgefield, Derwentside, Teesdale, Wear Valley, Chester-le-Street and Sunderland. His poetry has been extensively published in magazines such as New Statesman, Poetry Review, Dreamcatcher, Other Poetry, Iron, Sand, The Poetry Business, and Poetry Scotland, as well as in the collections The Jingling Geordie, Dreaming North (with Graeme Rigby), Pains of Class and Imagined Corners, on cassette, LP & CD, and on radio & TV. He has also written for music-theatre productions, including 'O'er the Hills' (with Dreaming North - Graeme Rigby, Rick Taylor, Paul Flush, Joan McKay and Keith Morris, with guest Kathryn Tickell,) and 'Wor Jackie' (with Mike Kirkup) (1988) for Northumberland Theatre Company; 'Pig's Meat' (1997 & 2000) for Bruvvers Theatre Company; and 'The Roker Roar' (1998) for Monkwearmouth Youth Theatre Company. Other commissioned work includes 'Fire & Brimstone' (with Linda France, Paul Flush and others) (1989) and 'The Hexham Celebration' (with Paul Flush and others) (1992), both for the Hexham Abbey Festival; 'Suite for the River Wear' (with Dreaming North) (1989) for BBC Radio; and 'The Little Count' (with Andy Jackson and Benny Graham) (1993) for Durham County Council. He won the Kate Collingwood Bursary Award in 1986. He was the Judge for the Sid Chaplin Short Story Awards in 2000. He has performed his poetry on several occasions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at Festivals in Bradford, Cardiff, Cheltenham (twice at the Festival of Literature - wth 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 with Peter Mortimer during the Cod War), Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, the United States, Cuba, Jamaica and Kenya. He has long pioneered cultural exchanges with Durham's twinning partners, particularly Tuebingen and Nordenham in Germany and Ivry-sur-Seine and Amiens in France, as well as with Newcastle's Dutch twin-city of Groningen. In fact, he has visited Tuebingen some 28 times since he first spent a month there in November 1987 as poet-in-residence supported by Durham County Council and the Kulturamt, and he has performed his poetry in the city's Hoelderlin Tower and as part of the annual Book Festival. He has arranged for writers such as Katrina Porteous, Julia Darling, Michael Standen, Alan C. Brown and Linda France to join him in Tuebingen. In 2002, he visited New York City to give readings with the aid of a Northern Arts Award ad he will be returning there in 2004. He has also won Northern Arts Awards to visit Berlin in 1990, in 2001 to p ursue his studies of Dutch regional culture, 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. He often works and travels with folk-musicians from North East England, including Jez Lowe, Marie Little, Chris Ormston and George Welch, and he has written the lyrics for an album, 'Bleeding Sketches', by folk-rock band 'The Whisky Priests', with whom he has toured extensively in The Netherlands. He has also visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg to perform his poetry with musicians Pete Challoner and Ian Carr. He has recently inspired songs by Jez Lowe and by Joseph Porter of Blyth Power. 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. KEITH ARMSTRONG - SOME COMMENTS:'Keith Armstrong has more aliases than a man on the run.' (Graeme Rigby, The Page, Northern Echo). 'No one in the North East has written and read and encouraged and organised so consistently and over so long a period as Keith Armstrong. His poetry is different, original, and politically exhilarating.'(Andy Croft). 'There is an exciting sense of releasing the dreams and perceptions from the 'wee corners' of his mind - and the result is the honesty, humanity, sharpness of vision and richness of humour which he makes available for readers to share.'(Professor Helen Wilcox, Head of English Department, University of Groningen). 'Keith's poems raised goose pimples but also thoughts about today's culture.' (Peter Lewis, Hexham Courant). 'Keith Armstrong made a splendid contribution to the success of this year's Festival. The audience was deighted with the programme. I had lots of enthusiastic feedback in the subsequent days.' (Gordon Parsons, Programme Director, Cheltenham Festival of Literature). 'We love the way Keith puts feelings in all his poems.' (Children from Gilesgate Junior School, Durham). 'I think it's an eye-opener that poetry can be fun. What time at the Irish Pub?' (Ingrid Wotterba, Wessel Gansfort College, Groningen). 'Keith's poetry is sometimes poignant, occasionally savage and always written from his own off-beat perspective.' (Lin O'Hara, Northern Review). 'Keith is a noted Geordie wordsmith, a bloke whose musings were always radical, though of their place.' (Folk Roots magazine). 'A noble dissident.' (poet Brendan Cleary). 'A genial rogue.' (Councillor Ken Manton, Durham County Council). 'The British Council considers itself fortunate indeed to work in collaboration with Keith who has enabled those who have connections with the British Council to learn something of the local identity and heritage as well as the international dimension which Keith brings to his work.' (Jan Long, Regional Manager, Yorkshire and the North East, The British Council). 'When all the rat-faced boys were snuffling at their mothers'paps, Keith Armstrong was hammering out his own particular brand of urban socialism, its roots embedded in Newcastle and his love-hate relationship with his home city. Keith is an enigma, a peripatetic people's poet, whose poems were firebrands that pointed the way for a whole generation of poets. Keith made a lot of things possible for myself and many others like me. I don't mind admitting that without Keith I would have given up poetry as a waste of life years ago. Listen to the lilt of Keith's voice, it is the true voice of humanity from the pavement philosopher who has lost everything to the rake internationalist trawling the bars of Europe in search of poetry and love.' (Kevin Cadwallender, General Editor, Sand magazine). '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, Poet). 'Keith is a real artist.' (Margit Aldinger, Cultural Office, Tuebingen). 'I'm told that if the Labour Party is looking for a wandering poet I must put Keith Armstrong top of the list'. (Tony Blair). 'I don't think Keith is a person who is easily defeated through life as he is, by nature, a peacock which shows at times its beautiful feathers. It never goes unnoticed.' (Margaretha den Broeden, Poet). 'I wish the very honourable poet Mr Keith Armstrong good luck for all the seasons in his life and always a high inspiration for his poems.' (Jochen from the Holderlin Tower). 'Here's to Keith and all the aborigines!' (Zenida McDonald). VERY RECENT COMMENTS:'Keith is a very talented, inspirational and committed writer who contributes enormously to the promotion of Northumbrian culture - but also to the cause of poetry in general. His poems moved us with a gutsy pungent vigour which made us laugh - and think! However, he also made us brood, as for example in the moving tribute to lifeboat heroine Grace Darling.' (Suzette Hill, Friends of the Dymock Poets, Gloucestershire). 'Just a quick message to say how much I enjoyed your performance at Riverlines here in York. I had a great evening and it was refreshing to go to an event where there is some sort of coherent narrative running through it, rather than a series of unrelated verses. For once at a poetry reading, I didn't find myself drifting off out over the Ouse!' (David Cooper, Literature Development Officer, York City Council). CONTACT: NORTHERN VOICES, 93 WOODBURN SQUARE, WHITLEY LODGE, WHITLEY
BAY, TELEPHONE: (0)191 2529531 for further information and bookings.
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