One of the best-selling poetry collections of the past decade, Asta Olivia Nordenhof’s the easiness and the loneliness took Denmark by storm with its refreshing honesty and directness about growing up in a challenging family situation. Nordenhof eschews traditional ideas of poetic beauty in favor of poems that double as social critiques, addressing the inequalities in Denmark, the difficulties of living under great financial strain, of various forms of abuse, and of working in a brothel. A fiery book that attracted great praise from reviewers and readers, and won the 2013 Montanas Literature Prize.