Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "Selling Magritte’s House" is a surreal and darkly humorous meditation on art, commerce, and the human desire for stability amidst the absurd. The poem engages with the dreamlike imagery of René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist known for his paradoxical juxtapositions—trains emerging from fireplaces, rocks suspended in midair, bowler-hatted men with obscured faces. Hicok transforms this aesthetic into a real estate listing, where Magritte’s surreal world is casually appraised for its market value, revealing both the commodification of art and the absurdity of human perception.

The opening line immediately immerses us in Magritte’s world: “The train in the fireplace / stays, immutably bound for Paris or Istanbul.” This is a direct reference to Magritte’s Time Transfixed, where a locomotive emerges inexplicably from a mantel. The phrase “immutably bound” plays with contradiction—the train appears to be moving, yet it is fixed in place, forever stuck in its surreal track. The destinations, Paris or Istanbul, suggest travel and movement, but here, travel is an illusion. The real estate agent-like voice presents this impossible image with a practical nonchalance, as if it were a selling point: “Think of it / as a conversation piece / of industrial muscle, an urban metaphor / offsetting the mantel’s / rural chic.” The language of salesmanship reduces Magritte’s vision to mere décor, stripping it of mystery in favor of a calculated aesthetic balance.

The poem continues in this vein, listing oddities of the house with a mixture of irreverence and practicality: “A rock in the den’s not / so bad. A little imagination, some hardware, a deft / use of explosives / and you’ve got yourself a lamp.” This references Magritte’s paintings of massive floating rocks, such as The Castle of the Pyrenees, where an enormous boulder hovers inexplicably above the sea. Hicok’s voice dismisses its surreal significance and instead reframes it as a minor inconvenience, something to be dealt with through “a deft use of explosives.” The absurdity of the suggestion mirrors the absurdity of attempting to rationalize or repurpose surrealism for functional living.

The next lines, “A solid / style, very Ethan Allen, / and what doesn’t go / with black?” further commercialize the house, referencing the popular American furniture brand known for its traditional craftsmanship. The implication is that even Magritte’s impossible landscapes can be marketed as tasteful interior design, stripping them of their philosophical weight. The irony of selling surrealism as timeless plays into one of the poem’s central themes: the human longing for constancy, even in a world that is inherently unstable.

The poem then shifts toward the idea of containment: “Notice the sky / living inside these windows, / an animal caged in glass.” This references Magritte’s frequent use of windows and skies, such as in The Human Condition, where the sky painted on a canvas aligns perfectly with the sky outside, blurring the boundary between reality and representation. Hicok describes this effect in terms of imprisonment—“an animal caged in glass”—suggesting that even the limitless sky becomes something fixed, something for sale.

This idea of controlled nature continues: “With these, / the mountains / in the next room, the sea / he keeps out back, you’ve got / an unvarying version of nature, a good investment, hedge / against inflation.” The natural world, as depicted by Magritte, is frozen in time, reduced to a financial asset. The phrase “hedge against inflation” transforms art’s representation of nature into a commodity, something to be purchased for its stability rather than its beauty or meaning. The irony deepens with “People despise the persecution of change. / Constancy: they’ll pay / big-time for that.” This insight reveals a fundamental human contradiction: though we exist in an ever-changing world, we crave the illusion of permanence, and we are willing to buy into it—even if it means living in a surrealist dream where mountains are kept in rooms and the sea is a backyard fixture.

The poem then introduces the owner of the house—presumably Magritte himself or a figure embodying his aesthetic: “The owner? A very regular man, takes his potatoes boiled, / eyes gouged out, likes to walk his bowler same time / each night, but shy, / a congenital mumbler.” This description fuses Magritte’s own persona with the faceless men in his paintings (The Son of Man being the most famous example). The image of “eyes gouged out” alludes to Magritte’s frequent obscuring of faces, as in The Lovers, where two figures kiss with cloth covering their heads. The bowler hat—Magritte’s signature motif—further cements the surrealist influence. The owner is depicted as oddly ordinary, yet disturbingly detached, “finding holes / in the horizon, / holds his best conversations / with the backs of heads.” The line “finding holes in the horizon” evokes the way Magritte’s paintings manipulate perspective, opening up illogical spaces where sky meets ground in unnatural ways.

Then, the poem shifts back to the prospective buyer: “He likes you, says you're different from the others, / admires how you carry / your feet in your hands, your ability / to stand two places / at once.” This description turns the buyer into another surreal figure, capable of impossible movements, embodying the contradictions that Magritte’s work so often explores. The phrase “stand two places at once” encapsulates the nature of surrealism itself—existing in dualities, resisting singular meaning.

The poem’s final twist comes with a moment of dark humor: “When / I told him you didn’t ask / if the Howitzer in the den / could be moved but inquired if the deal included shells, / he curled his toes / and smiled.” The casual mention of a Howitzer—a massive piece of artillery—raises the stakes, suggesting that the house’s surrealism contains a latent violence. The buyer’s lack of concern about its presence, and their instead practical interest in whether it comes with ammunition, turns the absurd into something ominous. Magritte’s world is no longer just playful illusion—it harbors something more unsettling, something potentially destructive.

The final image, “Act soon and I think he’ll throw in / his pet bird, its / granite wings / a joke played on the air.” references Magritte’s The Explanation, in which a bird appears to be made of stone, defying the natural properties of flight. This closing line captures the essence of Magritte’s surrealism—an impossible contradiction presented as fact. The bird, meant to fly, is made of rock, making its very nature a joke on reality itself.

Hicok’s "Selling Magritte’s House" brilliantly satirizes the way we commodify art, rationalize absurdity, and crave stability in a world that is anything but stable. By framing Magritte’s surreal landscapes as a real estate transaction, Hicok highlights how we attempt to domesticate the inexplicable, reducing the mysteries of existence to mere decor. The poem’s humor, its sharp critique of capitalism’s impulse to package the unpackageable, and its seamless integration of Magritte’s motifs create a piece that, much like Magritte’s paintings, invites multiple interpretations—each one unraveling the illusion just as another takes its place.

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