More on Nancy Holt's "Buried Poems" & Jan Estep's "Beneath the Surface of Language"

Elise found more information on the Buried Poems from this dated website:

"LOCATION: places such as an unnamed, uninhabited island in the Florida Keys, Arches National Monument Desert in Utah, and at the bottom of the Highlands of Navesink near Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

"Holt gave five people (Michael Heizer, Philip Leider, Carl Andre, John Perrault, and Robert Smithson) a packet of information which allowed them to find and dig up a poem. Each poem was buried in a location which was chosen based on their personality. Included in the packet were such items as maps, photos, very detailed directions for finding the poem, along with either postcards, cut out images, and maybe specimens of leaves or rocks from the site. The recipient would eventually understand his connection with the site. The poems were all buried in vacuum containers which would last long enough for them to dig it up whenever they happened to be near the area."

Of course I would like to know if any of these people ever found their poems - the idea of them sealed in vacuum containers is intriguing though anti-ephemeral just like the vast majority of American Land Art.

My search for more information brought me to Jan Estep's Beneath the Surface of Language. Estep spent two weeks at the Center for Land Use Interpretation residency program to create "a site-specific map/text/photo project featuring the 54-mile backcountry Silver Island Mountain Byway, a BLM-managed route near the Bonneville Speedway just outside of Wendover, Utah."

She comments on Nancy Holt's Buried Poems and John Baldessari's California Map Project - two of my favorite works in the genre of art and mapmaking.



See more of Estep's work here. Image above from Estep's Site #2.

Nancy Holt's Burial Project

Nancy Holt, The Last Map Used to Locate Buried Poem Number 4 for Michael Heizer, 1969-71



Nancy Holt, Buried Poem Number 4 for Michael Heizer The Double O, 1971 & Buried Poem Number 4 for Michael Heizer, Dark Angel through Double O Arch, 1971

From Phaidon's Land and Environmental Art:

"These poems were private artworks. Holt dedicated the poems to five different people (Michael Heizer, Philip Leider, Carl Andre, John Perrault, and Robert Smithson) and chose the remote sites according to certain physical, spatial, and atmospheric qualities which would evoke a particular person for her. The poems were buried in vacuum containers, and the recipient received a map which contained all the necessary information for the poem to be found and dug up. The map provided Holt with both a physical location and characteristics which she could relate to a specific person, as well as a symbolic space in which to construct the meaning presented in the poems. Along with the instructions on how to find the site she included details of the history, geology, flora, and fauna of the site as well as maps, pictures, and specimens of rocks and leaves."

I have been thinking a lot about Holt's Burial/Mapping project recently as a way to incorporate artist correspondence with interring objects. We are working hard researching the second leg of our journey and I of course, want to continue exploring the object in remote locales. I am not interested in writing poems or cataloging the flora and fauna of the environment but I AM intrigued by responding to something within that place and referring it to the artists who I will send a letter to. The artists will be ones inspirational to our project yet there will be no response anticipated.