Mark Yakich has worked in the European Parliament in Brussels and has degrees in political science, West European studies, and poetry.

Mark Yakich is an original... In the unabashedly unwieldy title and in each poem, there are no borders drawn between the commonplace and the metaphysical. There are journeys, crossings, and departures-all evocative of the loneliness, alienation, and desire for identity with another (person or place), which, formalized, makes this work recognizable as art of a very high order." -James Galvin, Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment of the Arts Fellow