Maya C. Popa is an American poet, researcher, editor, and teacher who has published two pamphlets: The Bees Have Been Canceled in 2017, and You Always Wished the Animals Would Leave in 2018. Most recently, her first full-length collection, American Faith, was published by Sarabande Books in 2019. The book was the runner-up in the Kathryn A. Morton Prize judged by Ocean Vuong and the winner of the 2020 North American Book Award from the Poetry Society of Virginia. She is the recipient of awards from the Poetry Foundation, the Oxford Poetry Society, and Munster Literature Centre in Cork, Ireland, among others. Maya is the Poetry Reviews Editor at Publishers Weekly, an English teacher and director of the Creative Writing Program at the Nightingale-Bamford school in NYC, and is currently pursuing her PhD on the role of wonder in poetry at Goldsmiths, University of London. As you’ll be able to tell from the recording, Niall Munro spoke with Maya in late May whilst the Covid-19 lockdown was still in place in New York City where she lives. They talked about three of the poems from American Faith: 'The Government Has Been Canceled', 'Meditation Having Felt and Forgotten', and 'Knockout Mouse Model'. You can read the poems that Maya discusses on the Poetry Centre’s Podcasts page, and you can order a copy of American Faith from Sarabande Books and the Poetry Book Society, as well as the usual retailers. You can also visit Maya’s own website and follow her on Twitter. Do tell us what you think of the podcast by e-mailing us or getting in touch via social media - we’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thank you for listening!