POETRY BOOKS

NEW poetry pamphlet Empirical out March 2026! Preorder from publisher The Braag here

Empirical by Gita Ralleigh explores immigrant life, domesticity and motherhood through a series of lyric poems and narrative fragments, including several ghazals. These poems trace how inherited myths, contested histories and political tides pattern our lives, leaving indelible marks which corral the course of future imaginaries for ourselves and our descendants.

PRAISE for Empirical:

“A gorgeous book; there are so many moments of transcendence in Empirical, a collection which sets ‘the blood singing.’”

—Mona Arshi, author of Mouth

“Juxtaposing ‘Empire’ with ‘Empirical’ the crystalline poems in Gita Ralleigh’s Empirical navigate the space between two forces: the ubiquitous yet invisible power of empire, and the empirical universe of memory—a “lost homeland,” a “ghost song”—that has faded into invisibility across space and time.”

—Cynthia Cruz, author of Hotel Oblivion

‘In jewelled and cutting language, Ralleigh summons up the 1943 Bengal Famine, ghosts, ayahs, mothers, bridal marigolds, peacocks, rot. The history of the subcontinent under Empire – which is also Britain’s history – is laid out in rich and rousing poetical forms. These are beautiful, heartbreaking poems about the catastrophe (for many of us) that the British Empire wreaked, and its legacy.’

—Anita Pati, author of Hiding to Nothing

You can order Siren here
PRAISE for Siren:
Ralleigh follows in the wake of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife, among others, foregrounding the women of mythology […] adding more diverse figures such as Sedna and Lilith.
Jenny He, Poetry London 105
Gita Ralleigh is a fierce and shining poet, unafraid to find resistance and beauty in the darkest places. In these wild, febrile poems, she overlaps myth, violence and enchantment until they gleam like scales. These are poems which will burn within you long after the page has been turned.
Liz Berry, The Republic of Motherhood
Gita Ralleigh’s Sirens are half woman half flight, half woman half saltwater, as per the dual nature of the myth. This ‘sonation of winging ghosts’ is a thrilling exploration of femininity, legends, violence and triumph. As ‘thunder djinns the air’, these sirens sing strident ‘for escape / for escape / for escape’.
Khairani Barokka, Ultimatum Orangutan
You can order A Terrible Thing here
PRAISE for A Terrible Thing
Ralleigh’s poems–fused with high drama, ancient wisdoms, commandments and clarion calls–feature fierce and fearless protagonists.
Sana Goyal, Poetry Birmingham Issue 6
‘This collection teems with awe-inspiring women and their songs of survival, its poems breaking loose and blooming in multiple languages. Ralleigh soars through wisdom traditions to find words that affirm unspeakable pain with immeasurable beauty.’
Nisha Ramayya, States of the Body Produced by Love
‘A Terrible Thing is studded with jewels of language, and a calm surface that belies the drama of the stories it tells. Her poems have a quiet power and assurance, daring you not to be won over to them. That they persuade so thoroughly is testimony to Ralleigh’s talent.’
Rishi Dastidar, Ticker-Tape, Saffron Jack

ANTHOLOGIES

POEMS TO READ ONLINE:

SUMMONING

https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/colouring-outside-the-lines/

DANDELION

https://tygertyger.net/dandelion-by-gita-ralleigh/