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Charles Alexander, Poet, Book Artist, Critic, Publisher
Alexander was born in Honolulu, grew up mostly in Norman, Oklahoma, was
educated at Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
and has lived in Tucson for most of the last 14 years, including at
present, with his wife Cynthia Miller, one of the premier visual artists of
the American Southwest. His e.mail address is chax@theriver.com.
Charles Alexander’s books of poetry include Hopeful Buildings (Chax Press,
Tucson, 1990) and arc of light / dark matter (Segue Books, New York, 1992).
Two chapbooks are forthcoming in winter 1998: Four Ninety Eight to Seven
from Meow Press (Buffalo, New York) and Pushing Water from Standing Stones
Press (Morris, Minnesota). Alexander 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. Through Chax Press, from 1986 to the present
Alexander has organized literary readings, talks, workshops and
presentations by artists. 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 has 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. From this symposium, he edited the formative
collection of essays, Talking The Boundless Book: Art, Language, and the
Book Arts (Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, 1996).
Alexander has given poetry readings, lectures, and workshops throughout the
country at colleges, universities, art centers, and other locations,
including at 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 writes 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 writes,
"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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