The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly

Poems Collected
and New

Denis Johnson

 

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly was constructed by James Hampton (1909–1964), a janitor for the General Services Administration, over a fourteen-year period from 1950 until the time of his death, after which it was discovered in a garage he rented near his apartment in Washington, D.C. Made of scavenged materials, minutely detailed and finished with glittering foil, The Throne occupies an area of some two hundred square feet and stands three yards in height at its center. It has a room to itself in the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.