Robert Smithson frequently used language in his drawings as material. They Scooted Across is one of a set of works on paper that directly draws from the 1923 children’s novel Betty Gordon at Ocean Park. The book is the sixth in the “Betty Gordon” series, published by Cupples and Leon from 1920 through 1932, in which Betty Gordon is the protagonist. The book is attributed to Alice B. Emerson, a pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, with the ghostwriter being W. Bert Foster.

Something between a drawing and a text—or, as Smithson referred to it, “Language to be Looked at and/or Things to be Read”—​A heap of Language ​offers a series of linguistic terms confined by the mathematical parameters of a numbered graph. Its shape is something of a pyramid (a symbol of rigorous structural precision), yet it is constructed from the top down, defying the laws of gravity. This work could be considered a concrete poem. Cleverly evading definitive classification at every turn, ​A heap of Language embodies Smithson’s love of paradox.