Mark Yakich, creative writing professor at Loyola University New Orleans and a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series, has debuted his latest poetry collection, The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine, and the buzz has begun.

Susan Larson, book reviewer from The Times-Picayune, wrote of Yakich, "Seeing the world through his eyes makes the reader re-evaluate what a word can do, what a word can mean, even what history as we know it is all about.

Poems in this new collection address questions of suffering and atrocity (e.g., war, genocide), but with discerning humor and unconventional comedy. Historical figures live in Yakich's poetry, like John James Audubon and Rosa Parks, but he also meditates on current events, in such poems as, "Spell to Bring Me Osama bin Laden," "For a Suicide Bomber," and "An Untenable Nostalgia for Chernobyl."

Yakichs poems are smart and funny, fragmented and whole, little slaps into consciousness followed by long, painful echoes of growing awareness. You'll be taking them in for a very long time," noted Larson. The full review can be read here. For more information, please contact Mark Yakich at (504) 865-2259 or yakich@loyno.edu.