Borrowed Skins

These poems enthral the reader with their combination of crystal-clear thought and sensual imagery. Sylvia Geist illuminates the world and, at the same time, touches it with her bare hands. An expert linguistic alchemist, she transforms her diagnoses into astounding, nuanced poetry.

In the bustle of the big city, in the seemingly tame idyll of the countryside or in grey suburban zones – everywhere in Sylvia Geist’s new volume of poetry, individuals encounter the wilderness that lies within. With radical earnestness and a clear view of the absurdity of circumstances, Sylvia Geist asks how far we have come since we began to dress in animal skins. Whether her characters slip into the skins of foxes, whether they fear that deer will occupy their homes or satisfy their longing for human warmth by sitting under hoods in hairdressing salons, they are always in search of the world we share with others; a world in whose echoes “mount the rocks” and where the “coffins for the last remaining ice” are already being prepared.