In the introduction to These Fine Lines, a collection of poems written by young Nepali women, the editor of the anthology Itisha Giri asks, "What kind of women are we?" The poems seek to present to the reader an "intimate insight into the Nepali female experience" – an attempt to centrestage the lives of women in their own words, to represent their own subjectivities. At any point in history or anywhere in the contemporary world, this is an important cultural effort. Each act of self-representation contains the possibilities of evoking a consciousness on what being woman means in a hierarchical and unequal world, where women themselves are plotted along different levels of advantage. While these poems can indicate binding experiences across class, caste and ethnicity, one in which we are able to detect and recognise patterns of structural inequality of which we are all part, it is worth examining what is distinct about the Nepali experience and the poems of these particular women. Can it be representative of all Nepali women? The introduction cautions that they are not. But what does it say about the fraction it does represent?
These Fine Lines was steered by a group of young Nepali slam poets who are a part of the poetry network called 'Word Warriors'. The collective was formed following an event organised by a bookshop called Quixote's Cove in Kathmandu, in collaboration with the US embassy in 2010. Slam or spoken word poetry first gained ground in Chicago's working class bars in the US in the late 1980s. A countercultural form, it emerged as a challenge to the kind of highbrow poetry perceived to be locked in academia, and as an attempt to subvert the conventions of the existing literary canon. The focus was shifted to its performative aspect and the poems began to be delivered with great emphasis to engage its immediate audiences. These poems are usually performed in cafes, bars, bookshops, and as such may be regarded as an urban art form.