bob sykora

Bob Sykora is the author of the collection Utopians in Love (Game Over Books 2025) and the chapbook I Was Talking About Love–You Are Talking About Geography (Nostrovia! 2016). He lives in Kansas City, where he teaches at community college, edits with Garden Party Collective, co-hosts The Line Break podcast, and curates the KC Poetry Calendar.

Collections:

Poems:

Peonies (New York Poem) @ Dead Peasants - Summer 2024Two Poems @ Foootnote: A Literary Journal of History - December 2023Crying on the Exercise Bike While Watching The Great British Bakeoff, February 2021 @ Peach Mag - February 2022Poem Video @ Peach MagBlueberries @ Third Point Press - November 2020I Have My First Vision in the Middle of the Night @ The Shore - June 2019Anna Alcott at Fruitlands @ Woven Tale Press - November 2018Cities @ Reality Hands - October 2018Self Portrait as Utopian @ IDK Magazine - June 2018Three Poems @ Longleaf Review - April 2018Utopians in Love @ Cotton Xenomorph - January 2018The Sky Doesn’t Have Any Answers @ Public Pool - October 2017 (offline)U-topia (No Place) @ Maudlin House - October 2017The Nature of New Hampshire and Everything @ Vagabond City Lit - October 2017Visiting Utopia # 2 @ Reservoir Lit - October 2017Fixer Upper @ The Shallow Ends - September 2017To Kevin on the Occasion of His Wedding @ Gulf Stream Lit - May 2017Visiting Utopia #4 @ Glass Poetry - May 2017Morning Offering @ Window Cat Press - September 2016The Wedding Reception @ Window Cat Press - September 2016Fourth of July Twilight Zone Marathon @ Window Cat Press - September 2016On Leaving Chicago @ Window Cat Press - September 2016Summer Poem @ Pine Hills Review - August 2016Daffodil @ Portland Review (print only) - June 2016Dunkin’ Donuts @ Wu-Wei Fashion - May 2016Interfacing with the Bae @ Wu-Wei Fashion - May 2016We Sleep with Computers @ Wu-Wei Fashion - May 2016You, Me, and Red Knots @ Words Dance - July 2015Clicking Through Karla’s Wedding Pics @ Rust + Moth - June 20153 AM: The Four Seasons on the Radio @ District Lit - June 20152 Poems @ Literary Orphans - April 2015The Krampus @ The Merrimack Review - Spring 2015Philosophy 181: Being Human @ Surroundings East (print only) - Spring 2015Oma at Night @ The Monarch Review - February 2015The Wander Years @ Devilfish Review - December 2014

Other Stuff

Utopians in Love by Bob SykoraGame Over BooksMarch 25, 2025Format: PaperbackPages: 90Dimensions: 9"x6"x0.125"Weight: 0.8 oz.ISBN 13: 9798991556651ISBN 10: 8991556655Available at: Game Over Books and Asterism

Description:The poems in Bob Sykora's debut collection, Utopians in Love, travel back and forth through time, considering historical American utopian colonies in the context of contemporary heartbreak. They hope to ask what we actually can learn from the utopian dreams and failures of the past as we attempt to build a better world in the present.

PRAISE FOR UTOPIANS IN LOVE:Bob Sykora’s Utopians in Love is an aching exploration of the dreams and failures of utopias, both historically and personally. From Brook Farm to the local pet store, imagined utopias haunt the speaker, spanning through time, through cities, through people. This search for utopia is not anchored in naïvety, but in the very human desire to belong, even in the “soft/ such unbearable, soft nothing.” The dreams of utopia may abandon, yet Sykora’s poems remain steadfast: “The whole universe was dark and cold and scared,/ and I kissed you anyways.” —Diannely Antigua, author of Good Monster (Copper Canyon Press, 2024)Sykora is a funny and frank companion in this researched dive into these worlds, asking of one leader “How did he dream//such grand community when he died/alone with so many cats?” Also a heartbroken one: “ e moment doesn't last/becasue of course it doesn't.” Heartbreak and research, dwelling in the past because of course we do, history museums and thinking about kissing: “You. And that feeling. And all the ways I've tried to dream it back.” —Jill McDonough, author of American Treasure (Alice James Books, 2022)Human history is “crowded with longing,” and in Utopians in Love, Bob Sykora is a diligent and earnest witness of where the unanswered tugs of wanting have led. Neither history nor the seemingly-forever sky can resolve our wobbliest entreaties, but as Sykora shows us, absolutes and answers are hardly what's worthwhile, anyway. Crossing paths with such erudite and open-hearted searching is the actual—and utterly resonant—reward here. —Alina Pleskova, author of Toska (Deep Vellum, 2023)What does it mean to live in a utopia? No, I mean, a REAL utopia? Does one even exist? Bob Sykora takes us on a journey of place and heartbreak, reviewing historical accounts of attempts at utopias along with Sykora's own personal attempts at utopia while seeking love, red skies, memory, and blueberries. His poems will help you process what it may mean for a utopia to unpack its hierarchies and obsessions; including the utopias built in our heads. ank you Bob. —Maya Williams, Author of Judas & Suicide (Game Over Books, 2023) and Refused a Second Date (Small Harbor Publishing, 2023