Charles Alexander's books of poetry include Hopeful Buildings (Chax Press,
Tucson, 1990) and arc of light / dark matter (Segue Books, New York, 1992).
Four Ninety Eight to Seven is forthcoming from Meow Press (Buffalo, New York)
in late 1996. He has also published reviews and critical essays on contemporary
literature and culture. He is the founder and director of Chax Press, which was
begun in Tucson, Arizona in 1984; Chax moved to Minneapolis from 1993 through
1996, and returned to Tucson in the summer of 1996. Chax is a publisher of
handmade letterpress books and trade literary editions, both of which explore
innovative writing and its conjunction with book forms. From 1993 through 1995
Alexander was executive director of Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the nation's
most comprehensive center for the arts of the book, both in terms of programs
and artists' studio facilities. As its director, Alexander completed the production
of the visual/literary artists' book Winter Book in 1995 with visual artist Tom Rose.
In addition he directed educational programs and a variety of artists' residencies,
creative productions, and other works. He was the organizer and director of
the 1994 symposium Art and Language: Re-Reading the Boundless Book,
one of the foundational symposiums in the recent history of the book arts.
Alexander has given poetry readings, lectures, and workshops throughout
the country at colleges, universities, art centers, and other locations, including
the University of Alabama, the University of Arizona, the State University of
New York at Buffalo, Painted Bride Arts Center in Philadelphia, Small Press
Traffic in San Francisco, Canessa Gallery in San Francisco, the University
of Washington, Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Scottsdale Center for
the Arts, and many more. Alexander has also performed poetry in galleries
and art centers, has collaborated with musicians and dancers, and in general
brings to poetry a broad sense of artistic and collaborative possibility.
Poet Robert Creeley has written that Alexander's work "hears a complex
literacy of literalizing words. By means of a fencing of statements, sense is
found rather than determined. The real is as thought." And, concerning his
1992 book, arc of light/dark matter, the poet and critic Ron Silliman has written,
"Now Charles Alexander pushes the envelope of what is possible in writing
even further, to the ends of the universe. And beyond. . . This is the most
sensuous, intelligent, rewarding writing I've read in ages."
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