Miranda Cowley Heller, WHAT THE DEEP WATER KNOWS: Poems
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[0:45]Miranda Callie Heller is the author of what the deep-water knows poems, and I am so excited
[0:51]because at Zibi Publishing, we are publishing this book by Miranda Callie Heller, and it
[0:58]is so good we have the US rights, and I could not be more excited.
[1:02]You must go check this out.
[1:04]You'll remember Miranda Callie Heller, because her debut novel was The Paper Palace,
[1:09]which was a number one New York Times bestseller in the US, a Sunday Times bestseller
[1:13]in the UK, and was long-listed for the Women's Prize.
[1:16]It was also a Reese's Book Club pick.
[1:18]She has worked as Senior Vice President and Head of Drama Series at HBO, developing and
[1:23]overseeing such shows as a soprano, six feet under the wire, deadwood, and big love
[1:27]among others.
[1:29]This is her first collection of poetry, and again, we are so thrilled to be publishing
[1:34]it.
[1:35]If you loved The Paper Palace, you will be obsessed with this book.
[1:38]Go by it today, what the deep-water knows, Miranda Callie Heller.
[1:42]Welcome, Miranda.
[1:43]Thank you so much for coming on totally luck with Zibi to talk about what the deep-water
[1:48]knows poems.
[1:49]Congratulations.
[1:51]Thank you so much.
[1:52]It's so nice to see you.
[1:53]I haven't seen your nages.
[1:54]I know, you too, my gosh.
[1:56]So I'm ridiculously excited to be bringing this collection of poems to the US.
[2:02]I couldn't believe it when I saw you post, and I'm like, wait.
[2:06]You have a new collection of poems, and nobody's publishing these in the US.
[2:09]It was like the greatest moment for me.
[2:11]I'm like, what?
[2:12]Why?
[2:13]I think for both of us, by the way, I was so happy.
[2:16]I was so happy.
[2:17]So yeah.
[2:18]It's perfect.
[2:19]Well, we are so honored.
[2:20]And as you know, I was like a rabid, rabid fan of the paper palace, just ridiculous.
[2:27]So your writing is so amazing in these poems.
[2:31]Oh, my gosh.
[2:32]Like you can use any form to turn the woman's experience into art, basically.
[2:38]Oh, my God.
[2:39]Thank you.
[2:40]Love that.
[2:41]Trying.
[2:42]Trying.
[2:43]Trying.
[2:44]Trying.
[2:45]Trying.
[2:46]Trying.
[2:47]Trying.
[2:48]Trying.
[2:49]Trying.
[2:50]That's a really easy thing to answer, is it?
[2:52]Thank you.
[2:53]Everything else is hard.
[2:56]And actually, this is the collection is really, it's poetry taken from probably 15 years
[3:02]of writing.
[3:04]So a lot of it predates the paper palace, in fact.
[3:08]And none of it was written in a particular order, but came obviously at a sort of a distillation
[3:15]of a motion at a particular moment in time.
[3:18]But when I went back to this sort of drawing board of what, out of many, many, many poems
[3:23]and, you know, body of work, that I thought should be in a collection, hopefully.
[3:30]And when I'd finished that process, which in fact, you know, it took me about a year really
[3:34]to kind of really go through and generate new work and so on.
[3:39]But when I finally had about, you know, a hundred pieces and I thought, well, a lot
[3:44]will get caught or, you know, as one does.
[3:47]And I put it all out of my bed, I was in Los Angeles.
[3:50]And I went, oh, that's interesting.
[3:52]These are poems about childhood and these are about, you know, motherhood and marriage
[3:57]and the falling apart of a marriage and the bitter aftermath and then sort of surviving
[4:03]it.
[4:04]And then I think kind of evolving as a woman into a certain age.
[4:09]And so I just put it all together and I realized that I'd been telling a story kind of
[4:16]all along, even though I hadn't been aware of that fact over the years.
[4:21]And I think that was sort of an amazing thing for me because in a funny way, I would say
[4:26]the paper palace tells a similar story, but I hadn't, you know, the unconscious is a funny
[4:32]thing.
[4:33]You know, because Elle's story is told, you know, as you, I'm sure you remember having
[4:38]read it that it's in little tiny pieces that add up to a life.
[4:42]And that really is what this collection is, even though I would say each poem I hope stands
[4:47]on its own, you know, they, it's, they're linked.
[4:51]They had, they tell a story of survival and evolution and sort of, I hope a distillation
[4:59]of feeling as well, but they have lots of different forms.
[5:03]There might be very sort of magical realism or surrealism or realism or sort of quotidian
[5:09]reality, but I feel like they tell, you know, a woman's life story.
[5:14]And I hope it's really relatable to women that, you know, every woman or man, but who reads
[5:19]it will find something really about themselves, you know, to think about, I guess.
[5:26]And when did you become drawn to poetry as a form?
[5:29]Was it just something you always did or what?
[5:32]It's so funny you asked, I was on Cape Cod at Christmas and I was cleaning out a closet
[5:38]and I came across this really old sketch pad, my stepfather's an artist and it was
[5:44]an old thing of, you know, pencil drawings.
[5:47]And then I opened it up and in it was a poem that in his handwriting in pencil that
[5:53]I had written when I was five years old and he wrote, you know, he had to, he'd written
[5:58]it all down and it's, you know, I wrote Miranda Cowley at the bottom, right?
[6:03]So I guess that's where it started, right?
[6:06]And then my grandfather, who was a poet, I don't know if you know, he was a literary critic
[6:10]and so on, but he's also a published poet, he published his first volume of poetry, I think
[6:14]in 1929.
[6:17]And so poetry was always huge for him as a form and for all of us and, you know, he did the
[6:23]collection of Walt Whitman and so I was very influenced by that growing up and so on.
[6:28]And what was his name if people wanted Google him and start reading poems?
[6:32]His name is Malcolm Cowley.
[6:35]And he's known really as a literary editor and sort of chronicler of a generation of writers,
[6:43]but he was also a wonderful poet, but he, you know, he was carowax editor.
[6:47]He was, I mean, he was Faulkner's editor, you know, he was a man of letters, but he was
[6:53]also first and foremost as a young man of poet.
[6:57]And anyway, so I would tell this because there's somebody who's doing my grandfather's
[7:01]biography and he was in where his papers are kept.
[7:05]And he sends me these images and he's found in my grandfather's papers a little book
[7:10]of poetry that I wrote for him for his birthday of nature poems.
[7:15]And I was about eight years old and there's lots of misspellings and the handwriting's
[7:19]really crazy.
[7:20]But you know, you find these artifacts and you go, oh, you know, because one forgets
[7:24]and you have a whole life and a trajectory.
[7:27]And then suddenly it's like, oh, yeah.
[7:29]So I would say that was the very beginning.
[7:31]Then I came back to it quite a few years later.
[7:34]I mean, I was always writing poetry, but I wasn't in that mindset.
[7:38]And, you know, it led to the novel, funnily enough, people often go, oh, well, did it come
[7:43]out of?
[7:44]No, in fact, it led to it because it's at a certain point I'd started the novel, a novel.
[7:50]And I was so tightly wound in my writing.
[7:55]And so I put it away for a long time and I went back to poetry.
[8:01]And you write from a dream like place, you know, you write from a very unconscious place.
[8:07]And so you're kind of, you're not, you don't know what you're looking for, but you're digging
[8:12]without a goal.
[8:15]And so you kind of come across stuff.
[8:19]And that ability to go, oh, I love the blank page.
[8:22]I don't have to, you know, go back and revise.
[8:25]I can just write from that place, maybe go back to the book ultimately and write the
[8:30]novel in a very different way.
[8:32]So it's, they're very combined for me.
[8:35]And, you know, in the, I think in the acknowledgements of the paper palace, not to talk too
[8:39]much about that book, but, you know, one of the things I talk about is that fiction is
[8:45]poetry.
[8:46]So, you know, and a lot of pieces of poems ended up actually in the novel.
[8:51]People may or may not recognize a few different lines that were that inspired me in scenes
[8:57]where I was kind of, couldn't figure out where it was going and I knew I needed something
[9:02]and I would go back and look at old poetry and go, oh, that's, that's what the scene
[9:06]is going to, you know, be based on, jump, be a jumping off point for.
[9:12]So paper palace, obviously was Reese's book club pick.
[9:15]Is it, was there, is there a movie situation happening or not?
[9:18]I should have Googleds, but I did not.
[9:20]Okay, no, there, there isn't at the moment there was a mini series situation happening
[9:25]at HBO.
[9:26]Okay.
[9:27]And then there's been a lot of changes at HBO and so they gave it back to me ultimately
[9:31]and I've sort of sat on it to be honest because I think ultimately it should be a
[9:36]film, but, you know, I'm doing other things.
[9:39]And so I hope, I mean, I think eventually it will definitely be a movie, but I don't
[9:45]don't know when, you know, I've gotten offers and I'm like, we'll see, I don't want to
[9:49]do it the wrong way.
[9:51]Let's put it that way.
[9:52]Got it.
[9:53]Amazing.
[9:54]Okay, so take me into like your most recent poem that you wrote.
[9:58]Oh gosh, you know, funnily.
[10:00]enough, and it's, well, is it the most recent in the collection? Let's talk about the collection.
[10:06]There's a poem that's about, it's called the Arctic Circle, and it's, you know, it's about
[10:13]a marriage and about, you know, letting go of one's spouse in some way. And the funniest thing
[10:20]is that's the most recent thing I'd written. And it wasn't, you know, obviously, like, it's
[10:27]about feeling and distillation, but like, I don't know. I think part of it was, and this might be
[10:34]a sort of weird admission, but I really needed to take some, some more ownership of what had happened
[10:41]in my marriage. And, you know, I think having worked on this and worked on this and worked,
[10:47]and evolved as a human being myself, I hope, you know, I really felt just, I need to take some
[10:52]ownership, and that's what came out. So that's the funnily enough, the most recent poem in the book.
[10:58]So what can you share about your actual marriage? Oh, you know, without going into too much detail
[11:08]we were married for 30 years, actually, we're still married, but not from a longer. And, you know,
[11:15]he did what men often do. He ran off with somebody, and it was very heartbreaking and very,
[11:22]difficult. But, you know, as I say in that particular poem, I feel like I let go of the rope
[11:28]in a way. I was focusing on other things. I was, you know, not fighting for something before that
[11:35]happened. And that's sort of what I wanted to take some responsibility for, because these things
[11:41]are always complicated. And the irony being, of course, that everybody thought, oh, the paper
[11:46]pass is true, which it wasn't obviously. I mean, I wish that that guy existed. He's a
[11:55]fix. He's like the ultimate, you know, he's like a combination of like, Keith, Cliff, and Darcy,
[12:00]and you know, every other romantic hero who would only love you, you know, I mean, nothing.
[12:04]But the irony was that, in fact, that couples thing did happen, but it happened in the other
[12:09]direction. And not because of the book, you know, that was the time he wasn't saying. But,
[12:15]yeah, that is what happened. So, and we have, you know, we're fine, and we're friends. And he's
[12:22]completely fine with this collection. And I said, do you want to read everything? And he said,
[12:27]yes, of course, when it comes out, along with everybody else, you know, it's art. And he knows it's
[12:32]not autobiographical. Obviously, some pieces are an all poetry is personal. You don't really write
[12:39]poems about well, maybe not all, but you're not going to write like a Russian spy poem or, you know,
[12:45]a new genre to hit the market. So it is, of course, personal and emotional, but it isn't
[12:54]necessarily my, it's not a literal experience in any sense. There are some that are, but by and large,
[13:01]not so. Well, you write a lot about motherhood and sometimes the isolation and those types of
[13:06]feelings that can come with it, trying to find your way through. And the trickiness of that,
[13:14]how do you, how do you feel about translating motherhood into words and also how are you feeling about
[13:22]it sort of in general at this phase? Well, this phase I feel great because I have these two amazing
[13:28]sons who are very grown up in their ways, but also still figuring themselves out. My younger
[13:35]son just graduated from college in this last spring. And they're so, they've, the journalism
[13:41]was loving, strapping young men. It's really, they're so sweet to me. They've been really like
[13:48]at my side. Now needless to say, you know, there's a lot of drama growing up. Let's put it that way.
[13:55]You know, motherhood is a, is a difficult path. And there are lots of different mothers in this
[14:03]collection. And there's me as a mother. There's my mother as a mother. There's mothers who aren't
[14:08]obviously my mother or me because I think motherhood is part of the story in the sense that we
[14:15]inherit so much. And it shapes us. And that I inherit the things. What I inherit from how I was
[14:25]mother, let's say, is going to trickle into how I mother, whether I like it or not, even if it's
[14:31]in sort of the antithesis of what mean it happened. I mean, I'm sure you know as a mom that
[14:37]lot of what you actually end up doing is the opposite. And that not necessarily better, right? Because
[14:43]the opposite might be just as extreme in its way, but you find your way. And there's a lot of,
[14:49]you know, rocks along the, and turns along the way. But at the end, I'm, I have these two, you know,
[14:56]six foot four handsome young man who, who kind of take me by the arms and, you know, give
[15:02]lots of hugs. And it's pretty great actually. Oh, six four. Oh my gosh. I know. I'm not going to have
[15:11]any six four children. Strapping yes, but not six four. Are you writing anything now? I have been
[15:22]working on something for a while. And I'm really hoping actually it's taken me a really long time
[15:30]and also I've been writing, generating a lot of poetry. So it's taken me a very long time to remember
[15:37]myself as a writer and actually, funnily enough, what I was talking about about why I got stuck on
[15:42]the paper palace and what I wanted to go back to poetry is actually why I got stuck on this project
[15:49]because I got into my own head. Right. After you publish a book and people respond to it,
[15:54]then it's really hard to go, oh, this doesn't matter because no one's ever going to read it. You
[16:00]know, so I can just, you know, express myself in that way and who knows what will happen. Suddenly,
[16:05]I've like got too much analyzing it. So I put it aside about a month or two ago and I'm like,
[16:12]okay, I'm just going to calm down. And you know, I've written a chunk of it, but I'm discovering it
[16:21]and I will, but it's just it's been a funny thing writing a second novel. It's hard to shut off the
[16:29]self critic anyway, but especially after math of that and knowing like, you know, when I started my
[16:38]last book and big letters at the top, I was like, nobody will read this but me. And even
[16:43]that's why I started the paper palace, literally sorry to interrupt you. That is really
[16:47]fun. Yeah, that's the only way I could write it too funny. Yeah, exactly how. And so I can say
[16:53]anything I want because no one's ever going to read it. Yeah, no one's going to get mad. Nobody's
[16:58]going to read into it. I can say anything I want, you know, that's exactly what I did.
[17:03]Isn't that funny? Oh my gosh. I love that.
[17:07]It tricks the tricks we have to play with ourselves.
[17:12]Yeah, like, yeah, uptight New York girls.
[17:16]There's a lot of expectations.
[17:20]Oh my gosh. So who are you taking inspiration from these days? Like, what are what types of books
[17:26]are you reading or have you read anything great lately? Or yes, I have read a few, well,
[17:31]I've been reading a lot of novels recently. And also novels that haven't come out yet,
[17:37]but that I think are absolutely wonderful. And also things I just hadn't read before.
[17:44]So that's been kind of like, I'd never read Jessman Ward. And I've read Sing Underred Sing,
[17:50]and I was just going, oh, wow, you know. So that sort of blew me away. Broken country, I loved,
[17:57]and I was so good. Yes, I did. Yeah, and I ended up living for that. I loved this book Great Circle,
[18:04]which I think was wonderful. And I mean, I've been reading like a lot of women's fiction,
[18:11]I guess, what else have I read recently? Okay, I'm completely blanking. This is embarrassing.
[18:15]No, you came up with like three. I know. Okay, well, there's a few. And I've meant memoir,
[18:20]I've read recently that I was absolutely wonderful. If you haven't come across it is called
[18:25]exit wounds. And it's by Peter Godland. And it's one of the better books. And I read it down.
[18:29]I have read in a very long time. He's a memoirist, but it's really about the following part of
[18:35]his marriage at the same year. His mother is dying. But it's about his whole life as a journalist
[18:40]and a war correspondent. And he grew up in Africa. And, you know, his, his sister was murdered in Africa
[18:48]when they were quite young. You know, there's a lot in it, but it's so funny and so clever.
[18:54]You will love it. I promise you, I couldn't believe it. I was, I was on a,
[18:58]not a panel with him, but we were at the same writers festival in Australia. And so I heard him
[19:04]talking about it and couldn't, I started and couldn't stop. Oh, I highly recommend. Yeah,
[19:10]definitely have to get off the zoom so I can add it to cart. So what advice do you have for aspiring
[19:19]authors? Obviously not in the, you know, silence, the self critic, because we're still obviously
[19:25]both working on that. But in general, with, you know, for poets too, because also poetry is not
[19:30]always the most like, you know, hot off the press, the new collection poems, like, and yet they
[19:36]are so gorgeous and so inspiring. How do we breathe new life into that too? Well, that's, that is
[19:42]something that is really important to me actually. I think poetry has gotten a kind of a bad
[19:48]reputation and I'm probably going to get like destroyed for saying this, but I think poets
[19:54]themselves have a lot to have a lot of responsibility for that in the sense that there's a lot of
[19:59]writing.
[20:00]to one another in a certain way. It's, and I think it's almost like an academic, like academia,
[20:05]there's just, it's, you know, certain sense of, uh, not all, of course. And there's so many
[20:10]poets I love. But I think there's a misconception that it's like music, right? Anybody can,
[20:19]not any good, but you can, you hear the moon lights and auto, let's say, and you feel it,
[20:23]right? And that's classical music. But then you hear some very dissonant modern
[20:29]composer, and you feel many people sort of left out. They don't understand it. And it's almost
[20:35]like they're trying to translate something and that I think what's so important is to have a combination
[20:42]of powerful real words, but that also are accessible and meaningful and honest and raw.
[20:51]But in a, in a way that no matter what is said, somebody can actually feel your feeling,
[20:57]or it becomes their own feeling, if that makes sense. Yep. And poetry, you know,
[21:02]funnily enough now, I mean, with the world as it is and short clips of things, it's funny because
[21:09]poetry is actually the most beautiful short form, isn't it? And so, you know, you can go and listen to
[21:16]somebody read a poem and just have it, I mean, recently I just happened to be listening because I
[21:21]wanted to hear her voice to marry Oliver. And she, you know, she just read this poem that, you know,
[21:28]we all know and we all heard, and wild geese, and it will not be all, but whatever. And I was like
[21:34]just hearing her read it, watching her read it was YouTube, but her voice and her tone and the words
[21:40]just went, whoa, for that reason, you know, because you can read it in a collection as well,
[21:45]obviously. And hopefully people will. And hopefully they will, I mean, I really hope to
[21:53]that it touches readers, you know, so. Yeah, I think we need to give poetry a rebrand.
[22:00]Yeah, I don't have time for the book. Just read her poem. Or do both. Or do both, you know,
[22:07]buy the book, read the poem. And by the way, there's quite a lot of crossover, like I was saying,
[22:13]in terms of what the things, what the stories are, what our stories are, you know, and they
[22:17]are made up of journeys and journeys from childhood, you know, if you are a mother, or even if you
[22:23]aren't, you know, you take a journey in your life. And that's what this collection is about anyway,
[22:29]you know, absolutely. Oh, well, you've left me with so much to do. I'm going to watch the YouTube of
[22:35]Mary Oliver reading wild geese. I'm going to buy the exhibits. Oh my gosh. And somehow pick up the
[22:40]rights for the paper bells. So there we go. So, Miranda, congratulations. I'm so excited.
[22:49]I'm so honored that you're trusting to be publishing with this collection. We cannot wait to
[22:53]bring it into the world and just so much more to come. So, yeah. Yay. And also, I just feel like
[22:59]you've become such an amazing advocate and face for books in this way that's so important. So thank
[23:05]you. Thanks. Okay. Okay. More soon. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to
[23:12]totally booked with Zibi, formerly mom's don't have time to read books. If you loved the show,
[23:17]tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word.
[23:23]Thanks so much. Oh, and bye the books.