Crafting Narratives in Poetry: Live Workshop with Maya C. Popa

On May 23rd, 2020, The Napkin Poetry Review hosted a writer’s workshop and Q & A on Zoom with award-winning poet Maya C. Popa. Focusing on the role of narratives in poetry, Maya spoke about ways to draw readers into the story and acknowledge latent truths, providing participants with a live exercise during which they wrote their own poems. Her advice extended to the creation and carrying of a writer’s life: how to set up a writing routine, the realities of getting published, how to connect within the community, and not give up on what you love. We want to thank Maya and everyone who joined, sharing their time and work with us, and we can’t wait for workshops to come.

Maya C. Popa is the author of American Faith (runner-up in the Kathryn A. Morton Prize judged by Ocean Vuong), as well as two chapbooks, You Always Wished the Animals Would Leave and The Bees Have Been Canceled (PBS Summer Choice). She is the recipient of awards from the Poetry Foundation, the Oxford Poetry Society, and Munster Literature Centre in Cork, Ireland, among others. Popa is the Poetry Reviews Editor at Publishers Weekly and an English teacher and director of the Creative Writing Program at the Nightingale-Bamford school in NYC, where she oversees visiting writers, workshops, and readings. She holds degrees from Oxford University, NYU, and Barnard College (‘11) and is currently pursuing her PhD on the role of wonder in poetry at Goldsmiths, University of London.