Often, her poems are either inspired by or set in her native Pittsburgh. While some poems in her fifth published poetry collection, The Water Books, occur in places as diverse as Delaware and Rome, the poetry does not stray far from what has molded her life—her family, both in America and in Poland, and the city in which she grew up. Still, many poems in the collection explore natural settings, sometimes juxtaposing the urban and the rural. In this collection, as in others, past, present, and future experiences and observations give every poem dimension and texture.