In 2026, the Academy of American Poets invited twelve poets to each curate a month of poems. In this short Q&A, Maya C. Popa discusses her curatorial approach and her own creative work
Poets.org: Welcome to the Guest Editor Q&A, hosted by the Academy of American Poets. I’m Mary Sutton, editorial director, and I’m here today with the Guest Editor for September, which is National Translation Month, Maya C. Popa. Maya is the author, most recently, of If You Love that Lady. Maya, thank you for joining me and welcome.
Popa: Thank you so much for having me.
Poets.org: Let’s jump right in. How did you approach curating Poem-a-Day for September, National Translation Month?
Popa: Sure. I wanted to be surprised, and I think a translation-exclusive curation certainly will do the trick if that’s your aim. In commissioning poet-translators, I often had no idea which languages I would receive in return, which I thought gave this a sense of unpredictability that ended up being really kind of generative and inspiring.
I sometimes found myself choosing among three poems in three different languages. And so part of the process was really to receive as many poems as I could back, and then start to think across the month thinking about the spread of languages, the spread of regions, and the spread of aesthetic sensibilities. I think I really enjoyed looking at the distinct temperament that each language brought. And, of course, the fact that I was able to enjoy writers who I’m familiar with in English translating so skillfully and bringing foreign works into English with their own distinctive cadence and flair. I could go on and on about the delights of curating translations exclusively, but I’ll just add that it also acquainted me with medieval works that I hadn’t come across before and which I’m guessing will be new to our readers too.
Poets.org: Fantastic. Now, if you could direct readers to one poem or more than one poem in our collection at Poets.org that you haven’t curated, what would it be and why?
Popa: It would probably have to be [James] Baldwin’s “Untitled [Lord,]”. And I think it’s a poem whose appeal to God and just whose general sentiment and sort of interesting formal choices I love. But it’s also just tremendously exciting to see Baldwin’s mind working through the poem and to see him writing in this compressed way. He’s, of course, known as a novelist and essayist to playwright. We don’t often think of his poems, so the fact that one exists on Poets.org is always very fun and very exciting.
Poets.org: We have a few novelists, or people who are best known as novelists and nonfiction writers, who have poems on Poets.org. That poem that you just mentioned is certainly there, and it did very well on Instagram when we reposted it recently. Got over ten thousand likes. So people just—
Popa: Wow!
Poets.org: —never get enough of Baldwin.
Popa: Absolutely.
Poets.org: Yeah. Also, Toni Morrison’s “Eve Remembering” is on Poets.org. And if I’m not mistaken, we might have.... No, I’m not mistaken because I added those poems. I published them myself. Gayl Jones. We have—
Popa: Wonderful.
Poets.org: —also on Poets.org.
Popa: There is always something exciting about seeing prose writers being poets for a moment. Right?
Poets.org: Yeah.
Popa: It enriches our sense of their oeuvre, I think, across the board when you get to see that mode.
Poets.org: Absolutely. And who or what are you reading right now?
Popa: So I’m always in the middle of multiple collections, and some I’m rereading and some are new and some are for Publishers Weekly and some are for pleasure. And at the moment I’m reading Erin Belieu’s fantastic forthcoming new and selected called Cocklebur. And I’m also reading Elizabeth Bishop’s Geography III, which is a book I’ve read before in which I’m leading a discussion on next week for my book club, Poetic Commons. So it’s always interesting to reread a book with the purpose of crafting and shaping a book club discussion. You read slightly differently for that purpose.
Poets.org: And what are you working on now in your writing, teaching, and publishing life?
Popa: So I’m currently in the process of finalizing the curriculum for 2027 in Conscious Writers Collective, and I work backwards from Q4th to Q1. So I’m thinking really over a full year ahead at the moment. And we have some extraordinary core faculty leading quarters next year, including Carl Phillips, Adrian Matejka, Erin Belieu, and Richie Hofmann. And Meghan O’Rourke and David Baker are also going to be regular instructors. So I’m so energized by the thought of continuing to build a model of literary education and community that’s global and flexible and accessible and that enriches all other parts of the literary ecosystem. As I like to say to students, you really cannot have publishers without readers of poetry. So we’re all in the business of hyping poetry up and of making sure that people are dedicating to supporting those communities. And then sort of more personally, my new book, If You Love that Lady, came out from Norton a few weeks ago. So I’m also traveling across the country for readings, which is a blessing and a joy I get to sort of partake in every five or so years for a little bit.
Poets.org: Speaking of being part of a community, when I think about the work that you are doing in editorial, in teaching, in writing, in book clubbing, it seems to me that your professional life hews very closely to the idea, to borrow from Eavan Boland, of being a citizen poet. You’re nodding. Do you see yourself in this way? And if so, what does that mean to you?
Popa: I do see myself in this way, but I would, if the term didn’t exist, still believe in the remarkable powers that contributing to … I always quote Jean Rhys, the great lake of writing. Contributing to the great lake of writing will give you the momentum and stamina and perseverance you need to actually be a writer. I don’t know any other way. I think if my longevity rested on my quote, unquote “successes” or “accolades,” I would’ve quit a long time ago. So feeling so much a part of this community, and feeling that my purpose and mission is to feed it regardless of whether it’s through my writing or not is my way of staying a writer in fact. So I can’t separate the things that I do to hopefully water that community at large with my own contributions as a writer. They’re inextricable.
Poets.org: Thank you so much, Maya, for this conversation and for this new book. I’ve enjoyed reading it. It’s so romantic.
Popa: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.