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One doesn’t have to look too far into the author’s past to come to the conclusion that she is a seeker of knowledge. Her advanced medical background, scientific achievements, and research projects easily attest to that. But in her poetry Nowicki reveals a deeper quest, one that cannot be solved with a microscope or lab experiments; Nowicki’s poetry probes the human heart, methodically slicing away the layers of behavior to discover the truth. The result is a collection of poems that comes across as naked and unadorned, a book of unpretentious verse that reveals the emotional core of the individual.
This lack of fluff does not mean that Nowicki’s writing is devoid of beauty. She efficiently employs metaphor, rhythm, and occasionally rhyme. But Nowicki the scientist holds the poet’s pen like a scalpel, eliminating any material from her verse that could somehow hide the passion and pain she wants to uncover. A prime example of this is “Nobody’s Child,” a piece about a person who tries to be positive and happy but who is haunted by the fact that nobody screams at, waits for, kisses, needs or wants her. “Would You Hear?” has a similar theme but is in some ways even more poignant in its description of an orphan who once was loved, and will someday be loved again, but who is now trapped in that lonely between time.
Periodically prefaced by quotes from famous thinkers, Nowicki’s poems expose raw emotions and often focus on love or the absence of it, sometimes blending in humor but more often incorporating a profound longing for something just out of reach.