Worlds by Rae Armantrout with handmade paper cover

Description

Worlds (no ISBN), 9 poems, published October 2026 by Chax Press
$40

Worlds is the first completely letterpress printed book by Chax Press in about 8 years, and it’s a terrific return to the roots of our work of publishing poetry and of joining poetry to book forms that emanate from our understanding of the specific book. “Form is never more than an extension of content,” or, as a more honed statement, “Form is content.” In this case, nine poems by Rae Armantrout, printed with generous spacing, on a Vandercook printing press, by Charles Alexander, Rocko Foltz, and Ben Claus. The book exists in two versions. For this one, the cover contains a print by Cynthia E. Miller (Chax artist) on St. Armand “Colors” handmade paper in a deep red brick color. St. Armand, in Montreal, Canada, is one of the few remaining premier hand papermakers in North America, and one which creates editions of papers ideal for letterpress printing and book binding. The book is hand sewn as a single chapbook binding, using sage green Irish linen thread for the sewing. The people who helped in the binding are Cynthia Miller, Charles Alexander, Rocko Foltz, and Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. This version of the book exists in an edition of 40 numbered copies, each signed by the author.

The 9 poems in Worlds present nine different sorts of worlds, including “Poem-World,” “Art-World,” “Wonder-Land,” “Physical World,” “Dream-World,” “Miss World,” “Other World,” “Underworld,” and “Floating World.”

Rae Armantrout is one of the original poets of the West coast “language” poets. She is also a Pulitzer Prize Winning poet, and one of the most rigorous and fascinating poets of our time.

The book is available only direct from Chax Press.