Poet Maya C. Popa Reveals How Poetry Deepens Everyday Wonder

Emily Johnson · 2026-11-07

### The Art of Noticing: A Conversation with Maya C. Popa What if the secret to a more mindful life isn't another meditation app, but a poem? That's the question at the heart of my recent conversation with poet Maya C. Popa. Her work—and her teaching—keeps circling back to attention, uncertainty, and the simple act of staying curious. In a world that rewards speed, Popa makes a case for slowing down and letting wonder find you. ### Attention Is a Practice, Not a Talent "Attention is a muscle," Popa told me, "and like any muscle, it atrophies if you don't use it." She's not talking about focus in the productivity sense—the kind that helps you power through your inbox. She means a softer, more receptive attention. The kind that notices the light shifting on a wall, or the way a stranger's hands move when they talk. For mindful living professionals, this is gold. We often teach presence as a skill to be cultivated, but Popa suggests it's more like a relationship to be maintained. "You don't 'achieve' wonder," she said. "You make room for it." ### Uncertainty Is Not the Enemy One of the most counterintuitive things Popa shared: poetry thrives on not-knowing. "A poem that has everything figured out is a dead poem," she laughed. That's a tough sell in a culture that prizes certainty. But Popa argues that uncertainty is where curiosity lives—and curiosity is the engine of a mindful life. She offered a simple exercise: next time you feel the urge to Google an answer, sit with the question for 60 seconds. "Just 60 seconds," she said. "You'll be surprised how much more interesting the world becomes when you don't immediately resolve it." ### Three Ways to Bring Poetry Into Your Practice Popa shared a few low-stakes ways to invite poetry into your daily routine: - **Read one poem a day.** Not to analyze it—just to let it wash over you. "Even if you don't 'get it,' something in you is listening." - **Keep a wonder journal.** Jot down one thing each day that caught your attention. A smell, a sound, a snippet of conversation. "It's not a gratitude journal," she clarified. "It's a curiosity journal." - **Write a haiku about your commute.** Three lines, 5-7-5 syllables. "It forces you to pay attention to something you'd normally tune out." > "Wonder isn't something you chase. It's something you allow." — Maya C. Popa ### The Takeaway for Mindful Living Pros If you're leading workshops or coaching clients, Popa's message is a gentle recalibration. We don't need to add more techniques to our toolkits. We need to remember that wonder is already here, waiting for us to notice. As Popa put it: "Poetry doesn't give you answers. It gives you better questions." And maybe that's the most mindful thing we can offer anyone: not a solution, but a more curious way of being.