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JUDE ARMSTRONG

Jude Armstrong is a writer and abolitionist from the Deep South of New Orleans, Louisiana. Shaped by the experience of witnessing his community endure forced labor and working to build support programs for queer youth, he is committed to a world of material dignity. His poetry has been published in The Amistad, Palette Poetry, Bullshit Lit, recognized by Adroit Journal, YoungArts, Teen Sequins, and been nominated for the Best of Net. He is currently studying History and English at Columbia University with a focus on carceral and colonial studies, where he writes for Columbia Daily Spectator's The Eye and is a 2026-2027 Beyond the Bars Fellow at Columbia's Center for Justice. Color tex
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AN ALIVE BOY

a poetry chapbook by Jude Armstrong and published by Bottlecap Press

“This is an invigorating collection of breathtaking, innovative forms with an utterly necessary voice. You’re going to want to read their first chapbook because it will be the first of many astounding, evocative collections. Jude is a future poetry star.”-Jose Hernandez Diaz, author of Bad Mexican, Bad American" ...it's innovative and soulful. And mysterious."
-Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division and Heavy“Visceral, vivid, and honest, AN / ALIVE / BOY by Jude Armstrong flits through the experience of
assigned gender and into an internal space filled with introspection. A fleeting but meaningful
glance at transmasculine coming-of-age, this chapbook lingers in the dirt of small-town life,
asking the reader what it truly means to exist in a space and body that do not feel like home.
And yet, there is also a thread of longing, both in the abstract and in its many manifestations.
Armstrong writes from his perch in the sky, “bloodshot and staring,” to compose both the end
and the beginning of a life as it wants to be lived. This collection is a knockout.”
—nat raum, author of preparatory school for the end of the world and the abyss is staring back“With AN ALIVE BOY, Jude Armstrong paints an authentic, vivid portrait of boyhood & tenderness. There is a certain kind of agony that only comes with youth, and Armstrong has managed to capture it and put it into this collection. Each of the eleven poems in here is unrestrained, overcome with both the wild ferocity of adolescence & the soft ache of intimacy. Filled with desire, pain, & honest self-reflection, this is a book that will have you revisiting over and over again.”
—phoenix tesi