WHAT THE DEEP WATER KNOWS is the debut poetry collection from bestselling author Miranda Cowley Heller, a series of exquisite reflections on love in all its seasons.

In poetry that is quick-witted and lyrical, gentle and devastatingly frank, Cowley Heller contemplates time, marriage, and motherhood, and paints a moving portrait of a rich life.

'A breathtaking collection... these poems map a woman's life with extraordinary precision and skill... Heartbreaking, funny, poignant, hopeful - this is poetry that you didn't know you needed but will change the way you see the world' Daisy Goodwin, Bestselling author of The American Heiress


'What the Deep Water Knows takes you on a shiningly intimate journey....the chaotic narrative of life and loss re-organized to a waltzing beat of poetry. Silken and barbed all at once' Yael van der Wouden, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Safekeep

A breathtaking collection… These poems map a woman’s life with extraordinary precision and skill. Heartbreaking, funny, poignant, hopeful – this is poetry that you didn’t know you needed but will change the way you see the world -- Daisy Goodwin
How I loved this. A collection of poems that manages to capture a woman’s life in its entirety with all its joy, mystery and harsh unexpected endings. What the Deep Waters Know broke my heart and healed it too. Fans of The Paper Palace will adore it. -- Clare Leslie Hall
Miranda’s poems are living breathing words that are raw, honest and thought provoking. Reading this collection felt like a key turning a tiny hidden lock within. Her poems are brilliant and intentional, you will no doubt come back to these pages time and time again -- Jessica Urlichs, The Sunday Times bestselling author of Beautiful Chaos
What the Deep Water Knows takes you on a shiningly intimate journey - you are reader and confidant and you only get to glimpse at what lies below the surface. The chaotic narrative of life and loss re-organized to a waltzing beat of poetry. Silken and barbed all at once -- Yael van der Wouden, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of THE SAFEKEEP
It's a rare poet who is able to be open, arresting, and get to the very inner heart of the individual - because it takes serious bravery. I loved it. -- Melissa Lee-Houghton
Raw and intimate, the poems of What the Deep Water Knows are full of female life - a note scribbled to a son, a hummingbird in the garden, a lover walking away. Surprising and captivating -- Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street
Poetry as autobiography, but elliptical, elegant, and beautifully understated * BUZZ magazine *
A life told in astonishing, unerring verses. The early poems are beautifully opaque, stones glimpsed in cloudy water. Lyrical, brutal, devastating, visionary—through verse a woman’s life emerges, gathers itself, is dismantled, and settles again. These stories are as precise and arresting as icy water -- Sonya Walger, author of Lion

Miranda Cowley Heller was raised in New York City and Cape Cod. Her debut novel, The Paper Palace, was a number one New York Times bestseller in the US, a Sunday Times bestseller in the UK, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize. She is also the author of the poetry collection, What the Deep Water Knows.