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JUDE ARMSTRONG

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Jude Armstrong is a young poet and author of AN ALIVE BOY (Bottlecap Press, 2023), as well as the founding editor of Verum Literary Press. His poetry has been published in The Amistad, Palette Poetry, Bullshit Lit, and recognized by Adroit Journal, YoungArts, and Teen Sequins. When not directing school theater productions, he enjoys 80s music, a good film, and advocating for trans rights.

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