(Photo by: Khadeeja Saleem)

As a poet and professor of poetry and creative writing who’s been in the Kansas City area for five and a half years now, Bob Sykora uses his love for language to make the world make more sense to his students.

“Wonderful and great to work with,” Dr. Sam Bell, Sykora’s colleague, described him. “He’s a very accessible person.”

Originally from San Fernando Valley, CA, Sykora attended Loyola University Chicago for his bachelor’s. He obtained two master’s degrees, one from the University of Portland in Oregon and his second from the University of Massachusetts.

“I couldn’t sit still for a while, you know? Like, I’m past this part of my life, I think, but I liked being able to start over every few years,” Sykora said.

As for his specialty, poetry was something that came to Sykora at a time when most are trying to make sense of not just the world, but ourselves.

“I think most poets find that there’s some kind of, like, the world making more sense through language than through anything else. And finding possibility and, I think there’s this way that, through language, I always was able to make more sense of life than I think it actually feels on the outside,” Sykora said. “So, you know, at some point when I was in high school, I got obsessed with poetry.”

Poetry is an art form that may not be easy to explain or completely understand. However, Sykora uses his passion to break it down in a way that could be helpful to aspiring poetry students.

“It’s one of those things I love trying to teach because a lot of my students just look at me like, ‘What do you mean? What do I do next?’ And I think most people who do write poetry, they would be like, ‘What do you mean, what do I do?’ You just go, and you do it. I find a lot of the art form tackles the problem of communication, right? So I have all these ideas in my head. You have all these ideas in your head. Language is the way that we try to translate those ideas.”

In addition to teaching, Professor Sykora also runs the literary journal “Minds Eye,” a notable project for JCCC students to look forward to every year.

Dr. Bell mentioned that Professor Sykora is writing a book as well, and recommends it as something both students and faculty should keep an eye out for.

“His new book, ‘Utopians in Love,’ is very interesting and I am very proud to be sharing it with you,” Bell said.

Professor Sykora explained not only how much poetry means to him, but also how it can bring people together. For those on the outside, poetry can seem intimidating and a little too intimate, but Sykora sees it differently.

“It’s a way of meeting other people with closeness and intimacy,” Sykora said. “That is hard to get. I like that it’s a way to meet your fellow human and to know them. [That’s] really hard to do otherwise. It’s almost off-putting how much people are willing to share, right? But I do think we get a lot out of getting those parts of people, getting to hear those parts of people, and experience.”