​René Magritte’s Infinite Recognition, by Joseph Stanton

Infinite Recognition, by Rene Magritte (Belgium).1963.

​René Magritte’s Infinite Recognition
 
A walk with a friend into the endless sky can be instructive,
especially when it’s undertaken a few years before one’s death,
especially when that friend is just another version of oneself.   
 
Magritte enjoyed profoundly the pointlessness that is point of everything,
but it is hard to believe that absurdity
is all that horizon has to offer.
 
He needed to explain the silliness
of it all to himself over and over again,
as he does here in full--
 
Magritte brandishing his finger of index
to explain to Magritte
what they both understood to be
 
incomprehensible
but not all that
complex.
 
Joseph Stanton

Joseph Stanton is a professor of art history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He has published many books of ekphrastic poetry, with a new one scheduled later this year. His work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry, Harvard Review, Image, New York Quarterly, and more. Over 500 of his poems have appeared in journals and anthologies. His awards include the Tony Quagliano International Poetry Award, the Ekphrasis Prize, the James Vaughan Poetry Award, the Ka Palapala Pookela Award for Excellence in Literature, and the Cades Award for Literature. Ekphrastic poetry was one of the central concerns of his doctoral research at New York University, and he conducts ekphrastic writing workshops in New York and Honolulu. For more information on Stanton's latest ekphrastic collection see: http://brickroadpoetrypress.com/order-books/things-seen-by-joseph-stanton