Miranda Cowley Heller (4:42)

Thank you so much. It's so nice to see you. I haven't seen you in ages.

Zibby Owens (4:46)

I know. You too. Oh my gosh. So I'm like ridiculously exciting to be bringing this collection of poems to the U.S. i couldn't believe it when I saw you post and I'm like, wait, you have a new collection of poems and nobody's publishing these in the US it was like the greatest moment for me. I'm like, what? Why?

Miranda Cowley Heller (5:05)

I think for both of us, by the way, I was so happy. I was so happy. So, yeah, it's perfect.

Zibby Owens (5:10)

Well, we are so honored. And as you know, I was like a rabid, rabid fan of the Paper Palace. Just ridiculous. So your writing is so amazing in these poems. Oh my gosh. Like, you can use any form to turn the woman's experience into art, basically.

Miranda Cowley Heller (5:30)

Oh my God. Thank you, love. That's all we have to do, right? It's all we can do.

Zibby Owens (5:37)

Why don't you tell listeners what the collection is really about and how it came to be and everything else.

Miranda Cowley Heller (5:42)

That's a really easy thing to answer, Zibi. Thank you. Everything else, actually, this is. The collection is really. It's poetry taken from probably 15 years of writing. So a lot of it predates the Paper palace, in fact. And none of it was written in a particular order. But came, obviously, out of sort of a distillation of emotion at a particular moment in time. But when I went back to the sort of drawing board of what out of many, many, many poems and, you know, body of work that I thought should be in a collection, hopefully. And when I'd finished that process, which, in fact, you know, it took me about a year really, to kind of really go through and generate new work and so on. But when I finally had about, you know, 100 pieces. And I thought, well, a lot will get cut or, you know, as one does. And I sort of put it all out on my bed. I was in Los Angeles, and I went, oh, that's interesting. These are poems about childhood. And these are about, you know, motherhood and marriage and the falling apart of a marriage and the bitter aftermath and then sort of surviving it kind of. And then, I think, kind of evolving as a woman into a certain age. And so I just put it all together, and I realized that I'd been telling a story kind of all along. Even though I hadn't been aware of that fact over the years. And I think that was sort of an amazing thing for me. Because in a funny way, I would say the Paper palace tells a similar story. But I hadn't. You know, the unconscious is a funny thing, let's put it that way, you know, because Elle's story is told, you know, as you. I'm sure you remember having read it, that it's in little tiny pieces that add up to a life. And that really is what this collection is. Even though I would say each poem, I hope, stands on its own. You know, they're linked. They tell a story of survival and evolution and a sort of, I hope, a distillation of feeling as well. But they have lots of different forms. There might be very sort of magical realism or surrealism or realism or sort of quotidian reality. But I feel like they tell, you know, a woman's life story. And I hope it's really relatable to women that, you know, every woman or man but who reads it will find something really about themselves, you know, to think about. I guess.

Zibby Owens (8:17)

And when did you become drawn to poetry as a form? Was it just something you always did or what?

Miranda Cowley Heller (8:23)

It's so funny you ask. I was on Cape Cod at Christmas, and I was cleaning out a closet, and I came across this really old sketch pad. My stepfather's an artist, and it was an old thing of, you know, pencil drawings. And then I opened it up, and in it was a poem that, in his handwriting, in pencil, that I had written when I was five years old. And he wrote. He'd. You know, he had. He'd written it all down, and it's. You know. And wrote Miranda Cowley at the bottom. Right. So I guess that's where it started. Right. So. And then my grandfather, who was a poet, I don't know if, you know, he was a literary critic and so on, but he's also a published poet. He published his first volume of poetry, I think, in 1929. And so poetry was always huge for him as a form and for all of us. And, you know, he did the collection of Walt Whitman. And so I was very influenced by that growing up and so on.

Zibby Owens (9:20)

And what was his name, if people want to Google him and start reading his poems?

Miranda Cowley Heller (9:24)

His name is Malcolm Cowley. And he's known really as a literary editor and sort of chronicler of a generation of writers. But he was also a wonderful poet. But he was Kerouac's editor. He was. I mean, he was Faulkner's editor. You know, he was a man of letters, but he was also, first and foremost, as a young man, a poet. And anyway, so I would tell this because there's somebody who was doing my grandfather's biography, and he was in where his papers are kept, and he sends me these images, and he's found in my grandfather's papers a little book of poetry that I wrote for him for his birthday of Nature poems. And I was about 8 years old, and there's lots of misspellings, and the handwriting's really crazy. But, you know, you find these artifacts and you go, oh. You know. Because one forgets, and you have a whole life and a trajectory, and then suddenly it's like, oh, yeah. So I would say that was the very beginning. Then I came back to it quite a few years later. I mean, I was always writing poetry, but I wasn't in. In that mindset. And, you know, it led to the novel. Funnily enough, people often go, oh, well, did it come out of. No. In fact, it led to it because at a certain point, I'd started the novel, a novel And I was so tightly wound in my writing and so I put it away for a long time and I went back to poetry. And you write from a dream like place, you know, you write from a very unconscious place. And so you're kind of, you're not, you don't know what you're looking for, but you're digging without a, without a goal. And so you kind of come across stuff. And that ability to go, oh, I love the blank page. I don't have to go back and revise. I can just write from that place made me go back to the book ultimately and write the novel in a very different way. So they're very combined for me. And I think in the acknowledgments of the Paper Palace. Not to talk too much about that book, but you know, one of the things I talk about is that fiction is poetry, you know, and a lot of pieces of poems ended up actually in the novel. So people may or may not recognize a few different lines that were, that inspired me in scenes where I was kind of couldn't figure out where it was going and I knew I needed something and I'd go back and look at old poetry and go, oh, that's, that's what this scene is going to, you know, be based on or be a jumping off point for.

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Zibby Owens (13:50)

So Paper palace, obviously, was Reese's Book Club pick. Is it. Was there. Is there a movie situation happening or not? I should have Googled, but I did not.

Miranda Cowley Heller (13:58)

That's okay. No, there. There isn't at the moment. There was a miniseries situation happening at hbo.

Zibby Owens (14:04)

Okay.

Miranda Cowley Heller (14:04)

And then there's been a lot of changes at hbo, and so they gave it back to me, ultimately. And I've sort of sat on it, to be honest, because I think ultimately it should be a film. But, you know, I'm doing other things, and so I hope. I mean, I think eventually it will definitely be a movie, but I just don't know when, you know, I've gotten offers and I'm like, we'll see. I don't want to do it the wrong way. Let's put it that way.

Zibby Owens (14:29)

Got it. Amazing. Okay, so take me into, like, your most recent poem that you wrote.

Miranda Cowley Heller (14:36)

Oh, gosh. You know, funnily enough. And it's. Well, is it the most recent in the. In the collection? Let's talk about the collection. There's a poem that's about. It's called the Arctic Circle, and it's, you know, it's about a marriage and about, you know, letting go of one's spouse in some way. And the funniest thing is that's the. The most recent thing I'd written. And it wasn't, you know, obviously, like, it's about feeling and distillation. But, like, I don't know. I think part of it was. And this might be a sort of weird admission, but I really needed to take some more ownership of what had happened in my marriage. And I think having worked on this and worked on this and worked and evolved as a human being myself, I hope I really felt just. I need to take some ownership. And that's what came out. So that's, funnily enough, the most recent poem in the book.

Zibby Owens (15:37)

So what can you share about your actual marriage?

Miranda Cowley Heller (15:40)

Ah, well, you know, without going into too much detail, we were married for 30 years. Actually, we're still married, but not for much longer. And, you know, he did what men often do. He ran off with somebody. And it was very heartbreaking and very, very difficult. But, you know, as I say in that particular poem, I feel like I let go of the rope in a way. I was Focusing on other things. I was, you know, not fighting for something before that happened. And that's sort of what I wanted to take some responsibility for, because these things are always complicated. And the irony being, of course, that everybody thought, oh, the paper palace is true. Which it wasn't, obviously. I mean, I wish that that guy existed. He's, you know, he's a fict. He's like the ultimate, you know, he's like a combination of, like Heathcliff and Darcy and, you know, every other romantic hero who would only love you. You know what I mean? But the irony was that, in fact, that couple's thing did happen, but it happened in the other direction and not because of the book. The timing wasn't the same, but, yeah, that is what happened. So. And we have, you know, we're fine and we're friends, and he's completely fine with this collection. And I said, do you want to read everything? And he said, yes, of course. When it comes out along with everybody else, you know, it's art. And he knows it's not autobiographical. Obviously, some pieces are. And all poetry is personal. You don't really write poems about. Well, maybe not all, but you're not going to write like a Russian spy.

Zibby Owens (17:21)

Poem or, you know, a new genre to hit the market.

Miranda Cowley Heller (17:28)

So it is, of course, personal and emotional, but it isn't necessarily my. It's not a literal experience in any sense. There are some that are, but by and large, not so.

Zibby Owens (17:40)

Well, you write a lot about motherhood and sometimes the isolation and those types of feelings that can come with it, trying to find your way through and the trickiness of that. How do you feel about translating motherhood into words? And also, how are you feeling about it sort of in general at this phase?

Miranda Cowley Heller (18:02)

Well, at this phase I feel great because I have these two amazing sons who are very grown up in their ways, but also still figuring themselves out. My younger son just graduated from college in this last spring, and they're so. They've turned into the most loving, strapping young men. It's really. They're so sweet to me and they've been really, like, at my side. Now, needless to say, you know, there was a lot of drama growing up, let's put it that way. You know, motherhood is a. Is a difficult path. And there are lots of different mothers in this collection. And there's me as a mother. There's my mother as a mother. There's mothers who aren't obviously my mother or me, but because I think motherhood is part of the Story in the sense that we inherit so much and it shapes us and that I inherit the things. What I inherit from how I was mothered, let's say, is going to trickle into how I mother, whether I like it or not. Even if it's in sort of the antithesis of what happened. I mean, I'm sure, you know, as a mom that a lot of what you actually end up doing is the opposite. And that's not necessarily better. Right. Because the opposite might be just as extreme in its way, but you find your way and there's a lot of rocks along the. And turns along the way. But at the end I have these two six foot, four handsome young men who kind of take me by the arms and give lots of hugs and it's pretty great actually.

Zibby Owens (19:44)

Six four. Oh my gosh.

Miranda Cowley Heller (19:46)

I know, yeah.

Zibby Owens (19:48)

No, I'm not going to have any six four children. Strapping, yes, but not six four. Are you writing anything now?

Miranda Cowley Heller (19:59)

I have been working on something for a while and I'm really hoping, actually it's taken me a really long time and also I've been writing, generating a lot of poetry. So it's taken me a very long time to remember myself as a writer. And actually, funnily enough, what I was talking about, about why I got stuck on the Paper palace and wanted to go back to poetry is actually why I got stuck on this project. Because I got into my own head. After you publish a book and people respond to it, then it's really hard to go, oh, this doesn't matter because no one's ever going to read it. So I can just, you know, express myself in that way and who knows what will happen. Suddenly I like got too much. I'm analyzing it, you know, So I put it aside about a month or two ago and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna calm down and. And you know, I've written a chunk of it but I'm discovering it and I will. But it just, it's been a funny thing writing a second novel.

Zibby Owens (21:05)

It's hard to shut off the self critic anyway. But especially in the aftermath of that and knowing like, you know, when I started my last book in big letters at the top, I was like, nobody will read this but me. And even that.

Miranda Cowley Heller (21:22)

I started the Paper palace, literally. Sorry to interrupt you. That is really. Yeah, that's the only way I could write it too. Funny exactly how. And so I can say anything I want because no one's ever going to read it. Yeah, no one's going to get Mad. Nobody's going to read into it. I can say anything I want, you know. That's exactly what I did.

Zibby Owens (21:41)

So funny. Oh, my gosh.

Miranda Cowley Heller (21:42)

I love that.

Zibby Owens (21:45)

Tricks. The tricks we have to play with ourselves.

Miranda Cowley Heller (21:50)

Yeah. Uptight New York girls with a lot of expectations. Exactly.

Zibby Owens (21:58)

Oh, my gosh. So who are you taking inspiration from these days? Like what. What types of books are you reading? Or have you read any rate lately, or.

Miranda Cowley Heller (22:07)

Yes, I have read a few. Well, I've been reading a lot of novels recently and also novels that haven't come out yet, but that I think are absolutely wonderful, sort of. And also things I just hadn't read before. So that's been kind of like. I'd never read Jessamyn Ward. And I read Sing. Unburied Sing. And I was just going, oh, wow. You know, so that kind of blew me away. Broken Country, I loved. I don't know if you did.

Zibby Owens (22:36)

Yes, I did.

Miranda Cowley Heller (22:37)

Yeah. And I. And I ended up blurbing for that. I loved this book. Great Circle, which I think was so wonderful. And. Yeah, I mean, I've been reading like a lot of women's fiction, I guess. What else have I read recently? Okay, I'm completely blanking. This is embarrassing.

Zibby Owens (22:53)

No, you came up with like three.

Miranda Cowley Heller (22:55)

I know. Okay, well, there's a few and I. A memoir I read recently that is absolutely wonderful if you haven't come across. It is called Exit Wounds and it's by Peter Godwin, and it's one of the better books.

Zibby Owens (23:07)

I'm gonna write it down.

Miranda Cowley Heller (23:08)

I have read in a very long time. He's a memoirist, but it's really about the falling apart of his marriage at the same year his mother is dying. But it's about his whole life as a journalist and a war correspondent. And he grew up in Africa and, you know, his young. His sister was murdered in Africa when they were quite young. You know, there's a lot in it, but it's so funny and so clever. You will love it, I promise you. I couldn't believe it. I was on a sort of. Not a panel with him, but we were at the same writers festival in Australia. And so I heard him talking about it and couldn't. Started and couldn't stop.

Zibby Owens (23:45)

Oh, I.

Miranda Cowley Heller (23:46)

Highly recommend. Yeah, definitely.

Zibby Owens (23:48)

I have to get off the zoom so I can add it to cart. So what advice do you have for aspiring authors? Obviously not in the, you know, silence the self critic, because we're still obviously both working on that, but in general for poets too, because also poetry is not always the Most hot off the press, a new collection of poems. And yet they are so gorgeous and so inspiring. How do we breathe new life into that, too?

Miranda Cowley Heller (24:19)

Well, that is something that is really important to me, actually. I think poetry has gotten a kind of a bad reputation, and I'm probably going to get, like, destroyed for saying this, but I think poets themselves have a lot to have a lot of responsibility for that, in the sense that there's a lot of writing to one another in a certain way. And I think it's almost like an academic, like academia. There's just. It's, you know, certain sense. Not all, of course. And there's so many poets I love, but I think there's a misconception that it's like music, right? Anybody can. Not anybody, but you can. You hear the Moonlight Sonata, let's say, and you feel it, right? And that's classical music. But then you hear some very dissonant modern composer, and you feel many people sort of left out. They don't understand it. And it's almost like they're trying to translate something. And I think what's so important is to have a combination of. Of powerful, real words, but that also are accessible and meaningful and honest and raw, but in a way that no matter what is said, somebody can actually feel your feeling, or it becomes their own feeling, if that makes sense. And poetry, funnily enough now, I mean, with the world as it is and short clips of things, it's funny because poetry is actually the most beautiful short form, isn't it? And so, you know, you can go and listen to somebody read a poem and just have it. I mean, recently I just happened to be listening because I wanted to hear her voice to Mary Oliver. And she, you know, she just read this poem that, you know, we all know and we've all heard and Wild Geese and it. Not we all, but whatever. And I was like, just hearing her read it, watching her read it. It was YouTube and. But her voice and her tone and the words just went whoa. For that reason, you know, because you can read it in a collection as well, obviously. And hopefully people will. And hopefully they will. I mean, I really hope to. That it touches readers, you know.

Zibby Owens (26:34)

So, yeah, I think we need to give poetry a rebrand. Yeah, we don't have time for the book. Just read her poem.

Miranda Cowley Heller (26:43)

Or do both.

Zibby Owens (26:44)

Or do both, you know, buy the book, read the poem.

Miranda Cowley Heller (26:49)

And by the way, there's quite a lot of crossover, like I was saying, in terms of what the things, what the stories are, what our stories are, you know, and they are made up of journeys and journeys from childhood. You know, if you are a mother or even if you aren't, you know, you take a journey in your life and that's what this collection's about anyway, you know?

Zibby Owens (27:08)

Absolutely. Oh, well, you've left me with so much to do. I'm Gonna watch the YouTube of Mary Oliver reading Wild Keys. I'm going to buy Exit woods. Oh my gosh. And somehow pick up the rights for the paper ballast. So there we go. Miranda, congratulations. I'm so excited. I'm so honored that you're trusting Zivi Publishing with this collection. We cannot wait to bring it into the world and just so much more to come. So yay.

Miranda Cowley Heller (27:35)

Yay. And also, I just feel like you've become such an amazing advocate and face for books in this way. That's so important. So thank you.

Zibby Owens (27:43)

Thanks. Okay. Okay. More soon. Okay, Bye.

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Zibby Owens (27:48)

Bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram Ibby Owens and Spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.

Miranda Cowley Heller (28:12)

If your.

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