Indian poet Devika Mathur's acute obsession with the use of confessional lyricism has lent her writing a sumptuous sensibility. Finding fantasy a way to escape inner trauma, Mathur's haunting, visual work speaks of imagined journeys and freedoms, through imagistic and richly textured poetry. Mathur's work challenges the accepted notions of the female, and illustrates the intensity and eloquence of her life. Crimson Skins will make you want to inhabit Mathur's hypnotic handling of words and sink into her flowered world of blood and joy, pain and ecstasy.