“Sensual, jasmine-infused, and dreamlike, this is an ode, an anthem, a homage to (brown girl) girlhood into womanhood; to that pesky, awkward, beautiful bit in between… tender, sharp, funny and jubilant…” – Rachel Long, author of ‘My Darling from the Lions’
“Rupinder Kaur Waraich’s question reverberates beyond the frame: ‘What if I don’t become the artist I dream of?’ Tigress With Wings evokes the precarious, pulsing space between making and being. Rupinder breaks the ghazal form, assembling ‘unfinished fragments’ in arrangements that fluoresce in the ‘dark orb pitch.’ But perhaps my favourite poem in this entire collection was the penultimate one: ‘Amrita Sher-Gil and Frida Kahlo Split a Blunt.’ A burst of pleasure, just to read that title, don’t you think?” – Bhanu Kapil
Tigress with Wings was featured for Poetry Book Society’s reading for International Woman’s day 2026.
“Powerfully intimate, both serious and playful, this collection heralds a unique voice, unafraid to dissect and display the fraught, emergence of brown girls into selfhood. Women flower in this patriarchal earth – from Meera Bai to Katrina Kaif – becoming a ‘garden of aurat/ writing their own story’.” – Gita Ralleigh
‘Tigress with Wings’ is a radiant metamorphosis on the page – a girl unfurling into womanhood, ablaze with creative hunger, with fierce love. The poems pulse with the wisdom of Punjabi heritage – ancestral voices echoing with every step from Punjab to Birmingham. Waraich’s passion for women’s art stitches her lines with the threads of Amrita Pritam, Amrita Sher-Gil and Frida Kahlo, sisters across time, invoked with brilliance and wit. In ‘Heer, Sassi, Sohni, Sahiban’, legendary lovers are summoned and warned, their fates hovering in the poet’s hands, restless as myth. This collection is an anthem for girlhood, for survival and for the unyielding wildness of becoming… a Brummie heart beating beneath a tigress’s skin. – Kuli Kohli
Rupinderkw 