Disclosure: I’m personally acquainted with Bob Sykora. We’re both on the committee for the Riverfront Readings series.

That said, I really enjoyed this book. Partly that’s because the author and I seem to share some interests (American Transcendentalism, surrealism, utopian thought), but mostly it’s because these are good poems, with heart and wit and many lines I wish I had written. The theme here is the human longing for a perfect world (society, relationship, self) we never manage to find or make.