Discovery, Play, and Faith.

The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with author Maya C. Papa

Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please subscribe to Beyond.

Maya C. Popa

 is the author of two collections, Wound is the Origin of Wonder (W.W. Norton, 2022) named one of the Guardian’s recent best books of poetry, and American Faith (Sarabande, 2019), runner-up in the Kathryn A. Morton Prize judged by Ocean Vuong and winner of the North American Book Prize. Her poems and essays appear in The Atlantic, the Nation, Poetry, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD on the role of wonder in poetry from Goldsmiths, University of London, and was previously a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford University, where she received her MA, and a Veterans Fellows at NYU, where she earned her MFA. Her newsletter, Poetry Today, is one of Substack’s best-selling literature publications. Since 2018, she has served as the Poetry Editor of Publishers Weekly and teaches advanced poetry at NYU. She works closely with published and aspiring writers through her online writing community, Conscious Writers Collective. 

1. What are you reading now?

I just finished re-reading four titles by Anne Carson for a monthlong course I was teaching. She’s one of our most mesmerizing and brilliant poets and essayists, but I had forgotten how witty she can be. She has a comedian’s sense of timing on the page. She’s really a remarkable writer and mind.

2. What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?

Oh, I wasn’t a great reader. I went to a French language school and didn’t connect with the books that I was offered as an elementary and middle schooler. I really only remember reading Le Petit Nicolas, which was, as far as I remember, a series about a boy and the trouble he gets into at school. The characterization in these books was problematic by today’s standards, but I can’t say I truly enjoyed reading, and don’t remember anyone ever saying, here, try this. That said, I had one of those encyclopedic binders of animal facts and referred to it all of the time.

The earliest memory I have of being truly gripped by a book was Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Not long after, in the summer of eighth grade, I discovered Virginia Woolf and read Between the Acts (her last work, and one that is idiosyncratic and infrequently read) on a long train ride in Italy with no air-conditioning. The whole experience felt a little like delirium, and I loved it.

3. What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time? 

I revisit Philip Larkin’s poetry once a year. I wouldn’t say it helps me through a dark time—he’s a problematic figure in poetry and not traditionally cheerful by any standards—but there’s something clarifying and precise in his best poems that I seek. The grimness of his vision often makes me laugh—I’m not sure he entirely believes it. He oscillates between a patented blend of sincerity and cynicism; I hear a genuine desire for hope beneath it that I find very moving.

I’m also a great fan of dear

Elizabeth Gilbert

’s Big Magic. I’d recommend it to anyone engaged in a creative field. 

4. What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?

The article of clothing I find myself reaching for most is a vintage Levi’s denim jacket that is incredibly soft and goes with everything. I bought it in Paris two summers ago; the people in the store confided with great enthusiasm that it was originally from New York. I appreciate the silliness of my single Parisian purchase originating in the city I’d just left.

5. What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?

Instead of trying to neutralize discomfort, acknowledge the presence of the feeling and say, and I can still do this anyway. I’m thinking of this advice as it applies to the writers in my online writing community. Like all writers, they struggle with imposter syndrome, or other versions of distrust in their own skills, merit, or vision. I think that, often, we are in a rush to change or reframe that feeling, believing we won’t be able to take action until we do. What if, instead, we took the pressure off and said, “I can feel uncertain and unsure, and I can still show up and do a great job.” Uncomfortable feelings and emotions don’t need to prevent us from making progress towards our goals.

6. Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?

My dog, Chaucer, is my boss. He’s a French bulldog, and he is perfect. He’s also the most stubborn animal in the world. 

7. What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?

There are so many things I’m grateful did not work out the way I expected. To name just one, if I had gone straight from my MFA into a PhD program, as I’d once planned to, I would likely never have studied wonder. My MA was on Hopkins and Dickinson, so I would have focused broadly on Victorian studies. But I ended up going into full-time teaching at 24 and reapplied for a PhD—the single program I knew was the right one for me—at 28, dedicated to researching wonder in poetry.

It's that work that shaped my collection of poems Wound is the Origin of Wonder (W.W. Norton 2022). And it’s my work on wonder that inspired me to start a Substack in the first place. Poetry Today has been—and continues to be—a great joy for me.

8. Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?

Yes to both (not limited to shower/kitchen).

9. What are your hopes for yourself?

My hope for myself is that I will continue to grow and surprise myself with what I choose to build or experience. I am so much braver than I ever thought I was when I was younger. I want to continue to live fully, guided by a sense of discovery, play, and faith.

10. What’s a kindness that changed your life?

Every teacher in middle and high school who saw me. I owe so much to all of my teachers at all stages of my learning.  

11. What’s a guiding force in your life?

A guiding force in my life is the desire to help people identify the power and purpose of poetry in their lives. I want to invite people to understand themselves more deeply, to be in better touch with their inner lives and creative expression, and to welcome the full richness of the human experience. Poetry is a way into that fuller life. And I want to help writers enjoy the process of writing more than they sometimes do. I want to make people’s lives better and help them be less hard on themselves.

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If you enjoyed Maya’s questionnaire, you may also enjoy this one with Elle Griffin:

Anything Is Possible (especially in a gold power suit)

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