Earthskin is a selection of the finest poems by the Frisian poet Elmar Kuiper. Rendered in English with exceptional finesse by the award-winning David Colmer, this collection is a glorious illustration of the heights that creative translation can achieve. ~ “Even a cursory consideration of Elmar Kuiper’s work reveals the poet’s love of sound and rhythm. He combines this with powerful images that aren’t immediately decipherable, but still speak for themselves and invite you into the poet’s mental world. Often he presents animals as autonomous characters or metaphors. His poems “breathe” life. He asks a great many questions, establishing dialogues. Using a register that is often harsh and hard, Kuiper writes of death, sorrow, longing and love.” Geart Tigchelaar ~ Earthskin breathes a spade cuts who throws me on the shovel? Earthskin steams a shoveller sweats is the earth crying? Listen one busy morning as a centipede, cut off from lightness having lost cut by cut one by one all its legs wriggling a second longer.