Krog identifies certain themes that have informed her work since her earliest days as a published poet: politics and the land, family, and being a poet. Skinned opens with poems about writing within the intimacy of family and spans her life since she met her husband as a fellow classmate at school until their middle-age years being lovers, parents, and grandparents. The second part of the selection is excerpts chosen from a volume containing a long epic poem based on the life of Lady Anne Barnard from Scotland, who accompanied her husband to Cape Town and lived in the castle from 1797 until 1802. This volume was written during the height of apartheid and she chose Lady Anne as a metaphor for exploring being white, privileged and on a continent that one finds beautiful while patronizing and looking down on those who live in it. Part Two therefore represents a colonial vision. Part Three contains extracts from several speakers who lived in the land before the likes of lady Anne arrived. She has included interviews with inhabitants of the stone desert, three re-workings of Bushmen or /Xam narratives as well as a translation of an oral Xhosa praise poem. Part Four represents the political turmoil of South Africa and parts of Africa.

The poems come from volumes which explored how black people and whites identifying with the oppressed were removed from official history. The volume as a whole concludes by exploring imperatives on the poet, schooled within a western tradition, to learn "a change of tongue" in order to be.