YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING

if you think this is democracy,

this quango land

insult to our history,

this emptiness

of false celebrity,

this wretched shallowness,

this shattered ignorance

of all that shines from our fought-for heritage,

this media connivence

and bone idleness,

this following of the fast buck,

this grovelling to the greed of capital,

this sickening homage to materialism,

this lack of human spirit

in our city centres,

this brutal selfishness

encouraged by a government

that denies our European roots,

that scans the wonder of the vast Atlantic

for feeble ideas to run with,

this rat race of a society

that puts self above solidarity,

these feeble careerist substitutes for activism

who have lost any real will for change,

who have become corrupted by a power-lust,

who lack any passion

other than to climb grimly up their greasy poles,

clinging on to their self-delusion,

ignoring, in their centrist way,

the true beauty of community,

handing out their gongs to the servile

and rubbishing the selfless folk

who work their little miracles every breathing day.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

THE DUKE!

24" x 24" acrylic on board

BRIDGE HOTEL, NEWCASTLE WITH SARA HAUSER FROM TUEBINGEN

PHOTOS: PETER DIXON

TUEBINGEN WRITER SARA HAUSER VISITS DURHAM

    Above: Reading at St Chad's College Chapel, Durham University 14/5/2014

    PHOTOS: KEITH ARMSTRONG

Vita 

Sara Hauser was born in 1986 in Calw (Black Forest). Living in the University City Tübingen, she studies Philosophy, International Literature and Literary Writing. 

In 2012 she received a scholarship from the “First Academy of Reading Arts“. The following year, she and Tübingen‘s poet Tibor Schneider launched “hesse reloaded”, a symposium linking scientific, poetic and musical elements with Hermann Hesse's literary work as well as his relationship to Tübingen. 

Influenced by the “cut-up“ technique, Sara Hauser combines and “recycles“ in her miniature and short prose splinters of films and literature as well as fragments of personal memories to a new entity. Her current writing is inspired by films of Ingmar Bergman and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Additionally, she is influenced by writers like Daniil Charms, Friederike Mayröcker or Albert Camus and his philosophy of absurdism. 

Excerpts of her writing have been published in Tübingen´s magazine for literature and art “]trash[pool ”. 

THE VIEW FROM THE RED HOUSE!

PHOTOS: DR KEITH ARMSTRONG  NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE  TUESDAY 5TH MAY 2014

TUEBINGEN WRITER SARA HAUSER VISITS DURHAM

tuebingen photo: peter dixon

TUEBINGEN/DURHAM LITERARY/ARTS TWINNING

The partnership with County Durham and the City of Tuebingen in South Germany was established in 1969.  

Poet Doctor Keith Armstrong, who gained his doctorate at the University on Durham in 2007, following on from Bachelor's and Master's degrees there, first visited Tuebingen in November 1987, with the support of the County Council and the Kulturamt in Tuebingen, to give readings and talks there for a period of a month. Since then he has travelled to the city over 30 times and helped arrange for Durham poets, musicians and artists and their counterparts in Tuebingen to visit their respective cultural twins.

Doctor Armstrong was back in Tuebingen from Wednesday 2nd to Saturday 5th April 2014 with artist/photographer Peter Dixon for readings with Tuebingen writers Eva Christina Zeller, Sara Hauser, Tibor Schneider and Florian Neuner at Weinhaus Beck, a school visit and other networking initiatives. This followed on from his visit from Monday 4th November to Thursday 7th 2013 when he took part in a major symposium on the theme of writer Hermann Hesse who lived and worked in Tuebingen from 1895-1899. As well as joining in with the discussions and giving a reading from his poems on Hesse and Tuebingen, Keith met with poets, academics, teachers, musicians, cultural and media workers.  

Sara Hauser will visit Durham from Monday 12th to Thursday 15th May 2014 for sessions at the University and meetings with local writers, artists and musicians. 

Her visit has been sponsored by the Cultural Office in Tuebingen and organised by Dr Keith Armstrong and Northern Voices Community Projects with the assistance of Durham County Council's International Office.

Further information: telephone 0191 2529531.

Sara Hauser was born in 1986 in Calw (Black Forest). Living in the University City Tübingen, she studies Philosophy, International Literature and Literary Writing. 

In 2012 she received a scholarship from the “First Academy of Reading Arts“. The following year, she and Tübingen‘s poet Tibor Schneider launched “hesse reloaded”, a symposium linking scientific, poetic and musical elements with Hermann Hesse's literary work as well as his relationship to Tübingen. 

Influenced by the “cut-up“ technique, Sara Hauser combines and “recycles“ in her miniature and short prose splinters of films and literature as well as fragments of personal memories to a new entity. Her current writing is inspired by films of Ingmar Bergman and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Additionally, she is influenced by writers like Daniil Charms, Friederike Mayröcker or Albert Camus and his philosophy of absurdism. 

Excerpts of her writing have been published in Tübingen´s magazine for literature and art “]trash[pool ”. 

sara hauser with dr keith armstrong

                                                                                                 

Armstrong's Trumpet By Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Great Satchmo plays all bathed in sweat,

A salty Niagara pours from his brow,

But when the trumpet rises to the clouds,

It growls and roars.

To the whole world he plays the way he loves,

He is stolen from us by the grave,

he was stolen first before his birth

From his sweet Africa.

In hidden reprise for the chains of his fathers

His music enslaves us all like helpless babes.

The whites of his great eyes flicker in sorrow

As he howls and horns about the globe--

This kid from a children's home

In the town of New Orleans.

Great Satchmo plays all bathed in sweat,

His nostrils smoke like two great muzzles.

Thirty-two white projectors in his mouth,

But the sweat is as natural

As a beautiful mighty hippo

Rising snorting from an African river.

Stamping on fan notes with his heel,

And wiping the downpour from his brow,

he throws handkerchief after handkerchief

Into the piano's open womb.

Again back to the microphone

pressing down on the stage till it cracks,

Each wet handkerchief is as heavy

As the crown of art.

And art is very far from pose,

When it labors it's not ashamed of sweat.

It's not the charm of prattlers

But full of movement of heavy things,

The tragic labor of a trumpet player

Whose music is tatters of lung.

Though art is bartered and sold,

That's not what it's all about.

The poet and the great jazzmen equally

Like brothers cut their gifts to others from soul.

Great Satchmo, will you make it to heaven"?

Who knows!

But if it happens--Play!

let the good times roll once more!

Shake up that boring state of little angels.

But so there'll be no remorse in hell,

So death will cheer us sinners up,

Archangel Gabriel,

Pass your horn to the better player

To Louis!

Translated by Albert C. Todd

LIKE THE SPANISH CITY

The days have gone;

the laughter and shrieks

blown away.

We have all grown up,

left old Catalonian dreams 

and the blazing seaside bullfights.

We are dazed,

phased out.

Spaces where we courted

bulldozed

to make way

for the tack of tomorrow;

the hope in the sea breeze;

the distant echo of castanets

and voices scraping

in a dusty rotunda.

I remember where I kissed you,

where I lost you.

It was in Spain, wasn’t it?

Or was it down the Esplanade

on a wet Sunday in July?

Either way,

we are still

twinned with sunny Whitley Bay,

and flaming Barcelona too;

and our lives

will dance in fading photographs

from the pleasure dome,

whenever we leave home.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

ARMSTRONG-DIXON IN TUEBINGEN!

TUEBINGEN/DURHAM LITERARY/ARTS TWINNING

The partnership with County Durham and the City of Tuebingen in South Germany was established in 1969.  

Poet Doctor Keith Armstrong, who gained his doctorate at the University on Durham in 2007, following on from Bachelor's and Master's degrees there, first visited Tuebingen in November 1987, with the support of the County Council and the Kulturamt in Tuebingen, to give readings and talks there for a period of a month. Since then he has travelled to the city over 30 times and helped arrange for Durham poets, musicians and artists and their counterparts in Tuebingen to visit their respective cultural twins.

Doctor Armstrong was back in Tuebingen from Wednesday 2nd to Saturday 5th April 2014 with artist/photographer Peter Dixon for readings with Tuebingen poets Eva Christina Zeller, Sara Hauser, Tibor Schneider and Florian Neuner at Weinhaus Beck, a school visit and other networking initiatives. This followed on from his visit from Monday 4th November to Thursday 7th 2013 when  he took part in a major symposium on the theme of writer Hermann Hesse who lived and worked in Tuebingen from 1895-1899. As well as joining in with the discussions and giving a reading from his poems on Hesse and Tuebingen, Keith met with poets, academics, teachers, musicians, cultural and media workers. 

PHOTOS: PETER DIXON

TUEBINGEN AGAIN

I come back to you

when I am feeling hopeless,

when I am in despair of the heartless.

I trail my hefty books through Customs

to reach you,

to plunge into your depths,

to swim in the mystery of your streets,

the beauty of your trees,

the melancholy of your seminar rooms.

Yes, Tuebingen,

it’s me

looking for myself once more

in your troubled mirror.

So I dive

into La Boheme

and back and back and back

into the Boulanger.

So I stagger

out of Hades

and into the arms 

of the Neckarmueller 

to feed the ducks

with scraps of my trembling poetry.

Your Hoelderlin Tower

always makes me feel sad.

My body droops like a weeping willow

as my mad muse floats up river

to liberate new dreams,

to greet fresh friends.

I sail in your skies

in a Lufthansa trance.

Let me sing

of all that’s good in Swabia

for you.

Let me wish your lovely children joy

and then let me break my heart again

when I have to leave you.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

ART OF JAZZ!

CHET - FROM A WINDOW

CHET - FROM A WINDOW

(in memory of Chet Baker, born December 23rd 1929, died May 13th 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