Poetry is difficult for most people. There is an aura around it that suggests the reader will become mired in incomprehensible metre, with run on lines that will boggle the brain and that despite trying one’s best, you will come away from it without quite understanding anything. This myth that poetry is “hard” is unfortunate. While it is true that (some) poetry requires a great deal of concentration, it is also true that once things click, reading poetry can give you the kind of satisfaction, and a feeling of exhilaration that is more rare when reading prose.

And so comes the issue of reading poetry in a language other than your mother tongue. Nepali poetry is complex and beautiful, and for all who have been through the School Leaving Certificate and slogged through the required reading for the Nepali language exams, perhaps one of the few rewards that come from going through this demanding, nerve-wracking trial by fire is becoming familiar with some of the most beautiful verse in our language.

The tradition of Nepali poetry is in place, and so now it is the time for those who wish to write poetry in English for this, the hardest of forms. With These Fine Lines, a poetry anthology that was published last month by SAFU, we have a slim volume of some of the most gorgeous, poignant poetry, written in fluid, glowing English by young Nepali women, and spanning the spectrum of what it means to be young, to be female, and to be Nepali.

Aptly divided into five thematic sections which are titled Spaces, For Our Mothers, Of Fear and Longing, All We Have Lost, and The Battles Within, these 49 poems by 26 tremendously talented poets are breathtaking, heartbreaking, clever, funny, self-aware, sarcastic, unabashedly emotional, technically sound and, as with all good poetry, worth revisiting.

Itisha Giri, a poet herself, and the editor of the anthology wisely acknowledges the intensely personal, inherently feminine nature of these poems in her introduction, immediately putting away the potentially snarky critique that would liken these original poets to their western counterpart, the precocious, tragically talented Sylvia Plath—a writer who is practically synonymous with raging feminist verse and, of course, her daddy issues. There is much more to Plath than just these reductive descriptions, but I’d like to firmly put away these narrow definitions of women poets so that we can clearly evaluate the real importance of these new, exciting voices.

With subjects ranging from love and loss, to desire, disgust, disappointment, and often an uncannily clear-eyed view of human nature, poem after poem leaves you wanting to further mine each for its imagery and depth. Even after you turn the page, there are political and emotional echoes from these strong poem that are hard to forget.

Quite frankly it is hard for a critical reviewer to gush over poetry. It is so often just plain bad: which is why this volume is such a treasure—with finely crafted, original voices that are actively pushing their boundaries, making use of their constraints, and fearlessly telling their own stories. The anthology is bound by solidarity between women; within these pages, you will come across a bone-deep recognition of all the important issues that confront us, as women and as people.

Women are daughters, mothers, sisters, wives, single or with a partner, gay or straight, and all of these experiences, the pain and the joy, some of it beautifully distilled, other emotions gleefully leaping off the page, are present for the reader to carefully unravel from this forest of fine lines.

What is most remarkable, and is perhaps a secret held by the editor, is the absolute discipline of these poems. Elizabeth Alexander, a wonderful poet and a speaker at President Obama’s inauguration, was fortunate enough to have been mentored by the great Derek Walcott; in his words to her he said, “never try to charm in your poems, never try to charm with your identity, it’s not enough that you’re a cute, black girl”—the women who write these poems seem to have found this truth all on their own, hardly ever descending into the kind of affectation that can come from immaturity.

To take a step back in time and retrace the inception of this volume, it is essential to understand that the founding of the spoken word group The Word Warriors, in 2010, with the help and support of Suvani and Pranab Singh of Quixote’s Cove, was a crucial crystalising of those with things to say—male or female. Six years on, the Word Warriors are going strong with dozens of young talents riffling to thrilled, rapt crowds across Nepal; a remarkable evolution in the way we view poetry on every level. With these heralds of changing times came the courage to speak out; six years later we have in our hands a tangible volume of audacious (it is not easy to speak out as a Nepali woman) poetry that really does speak truth to power, and to every reader who is open to the sometimes savage beauty (in the words of another great poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay) and honesty within these pages.

For those who shy away from poetry, and whatever pre-conceived notions you may have about what women have to say, at the risk of sounding didactic, think about this: emotional intelligence comes from empathy, and if you cannot relate to your fellow human, man or woman, you are robbing yourself of a unique opportunity to evolve as a human being.

It is hard to quote any one of these poets in this piece for fear of doing injustice to these remarkable writers. Suffice to say that this book is a gorgeous gem, physically a pleasure to hold, with an astounding, enchanting illustrated cover by the talented Nepali artist Kanchan, and an elegant layout that eases the eyes, which, I will warn you, will often fill up with tears while reading these pieces.

I leave you with the words of Elizabeth Alexander, who, in her poem Ars Poetica #100 asks, “and are we not of interest to each other?” In the end, it is humanity that is the subject of great poetry and literature. Shakespeare, Laxmi Prasad Devkota, and the women who have written the poems in These Fine Lines would all testify to that. Buy this book, read it to enrich your experience of humanity, and be grateful that Nepal has reached a point where some women can now write truthfully of their pain and joy, even while we still have a long way to go.