How I Found James Magee's Poems

Photo of The Hill by Tom Jenkins.

One evening this week, I spent some time studying the photos in a book called The Hill. The book showcases an isolated, secret artwork in the rocky, barren desert of West Texas. The artist, James Magee, has spent 25 years creating four buildings, connected by causeways. He works, it seems, with a religious fervor and unending perserverence.

The stone work grew as a poem does, rock by rock, word by word, moment by moment. The interior installations, so striking in photos, are dense with symbolism.

Toward the end of the book, I found pages of what looked like poems. The Hill website explains these "poems": On occasion, while visitors take the considerable time required to study the works, Magee will recite their “titles”— in effect, lengthy poetic texts, at once allusive and immediate.

This intrigues me. For years, I wrote poems to accompany my artwork - until finally I separated the two mediums. I always wrote when the work was finished as a way to enlarge what I had created with my hands. I wanted viewers to "see" the work in yet another way. Sometimes the poems elucidated; other times confounded.

If you want to know more about The Hill, a fascinating, little-seen site, or its artist, check out the article in Granta magazine.