Nativization is a term Alicja Mann created for describing her daunting transition from Poland to the U.S.A. Looking At The World Twice is an apt title, for her evocation of both European and American experiences vividly conveys how such a move is nothing less than leaving one’s self for another with the assumption of a new identity. She brings to life a (fortunately defunct) Kafkaesque era in Eastern Europe, but also shares her fear that love of her new nation has been put at risk by recent events.The book’s counterpointed combination of poetry and prose draws the reader into two worlds as well as two genres.The dominant tone, I felt,was the scene where the author is collecting amber from along the Baltic shore, jewels of nature with insects trapped in some of these gifts from ancient trees. Such a scene shines like a golden sunset by Turner or Courbet.

— David Ray, author of After Tagore and Music of Time: Selected and New Poems

This is a well-written and interesting series of short commentaries on happenings on our planet by a Polish-born scientist who became an American writer, photographer and designer. Alicja Mann’s essays and poems reminded me of episodes in my own life and led me to discover angles I had overlooked.

— Steve Emerine, newspaper and magazine writer and editor, journalism professor, and author