I Was Talking About Love-You are Talking About Geography
by Bob Sykora
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Bob Sykora is a former high school teacher. He is currently an MFA candidate at UMass Boston and the poetry editor at Breakwater Review. He was born in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California, but has bounced around quite a bit since then. He still likes Chicago best.
Bob's I Was Talking About Love—You Are Talking About Geography is longing in a digital age, mixing wildness with self-deprecation to create snapshots of love on the decline.
Tweets thru @Bob_Sykora_
Order I Was Talking About Love-You Are Talking About Geography11/29/16 Update"We Sleep With Computers" has been nominated for 2016's Pushcart Prize !!
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Dig Bob Performing "Seventeen" FROM THEIR N!P CHAP(!):
Praise for I Was Talking About Love—You Are Talking About Geography:
"Bob Sykora explores a post-recession wasteland where the ‘the anxious dreams/ of flushed alligators deflating in the dry heat’ mirror a second coming (of age) when sleeping with computers is more common than with lovers and gas is “four dollars a gallon.” With lyrical prowess, Sykora reinvents the American sonnet, among other forms, spinning unicorns, gas station restrooms, Netflix, and butt spasms into simultaneous elegy and delight."
"In his surprising, funny first chapbook, 'I Was Talking About Love—You Are Talking About Geography,' Bob Sykora hands it all over. Seriously, we get it all: 'everyone else’s internet / life,' 'a Todd / we can all root for,' 'some surface to bash / my head on while my friends discuss / the joys of joint bank accounts,' all of it. These poems look at the ways our daily interactions with screens make us ever-present, and ever-absent. They lay everything bare, but don’t take themselves too seriously; they are good, honest, charming company, 24-7, here with us while we are all 'terrified / of this new type of love.'"
"i want to go on a hike but i want to have cell phone reception & i want my phone to have a better camera so i can send my friends pictures of all the stars i’ll be able to see once i’m away from the city & its lights & how they keep other lights from coming. i imagine they would be jealous but it would also be a good reminder that this sort of thing is attainable.
but ultimately, no one is letting you read their diary. when it comes to poetry, they get to decide what gets into every single word & how opaque to make it. bob keeps it very real, but i don’t know his life.
'the book keeps laughing at me.'"
but ultimately, no one is letting you read their diary. when it comes to poetry, they get to decide what gets into every single word & how opaque to make it. bob keeps it very real, but i don’t know his life.
'the book keeps laughing at me.'"
"Cars are more than anybody ever wanted. Long ago a car was freedom meant people could go wherever they wanted. Unfortunately everybody got the same idea. People drive at the same time for work, for a thing that ultimately does not define them merely supports them. Those defined by work have sad lives indeed. Most typically bounce from job to job. Only so much of the same can be tolerated. Gradually the job wears a person down. With their commutes they find themselves increasingly alone in the world. Gone with whatever enthusiasm first existed they try to exist as best they can. Calling friends, watching the sunset in traffic, it is the little moments they give a slight glimpse of hope."