Maya C. Popa

Maya C. Popa is a Romanian American poet. She holds a PhD on the role of wonder in poetry from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she was a recipient of a department bursary for exceptional merit, and previous degrees from Oxford University, New York University, and Barnard College. 

Popa is the author of If You Love That Lady (W. W. Norton, 2026). Her previous collections are Wound Is the Origin of Wonder (W. W. Norton, 2022), named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of Poetry, and American Faith (Sarabande, 2019), a runner-up for the Kathryn A. Morton Prize, judged by Ocean Vuong, and winner of the North American Book Prize in 2020. She has also received awards from the Poetry Foundation and the Oxford Poetry Society.  

Popa is the poetry reviews editor at Publishers Weekly and is the founder of Conscious Writers Collective, where she teaches and oversees all literary programming for poets and prose writers.