Kyrah Brown

Written by Kenny Fremer

Photo taken by Brandon Paillere

Kyrah Brown is an instantly warm, kind person. She’s a senior studying political science and economics at Baruch, but as a creative writer spends a lot of her free time creating characters and stories via long, personal poems.

Her writing explores the many forces — relationships, events, and people — that have a large impact on her life. She usually starts with an emotion, then figures out how to best fictionalize that feeling. “I’ve always written pretty much everything - it’s harder to express things verbally, I end up getting tongue tied.” At the same time, she stresses the importance of keeping certain parts of her life to herself — hence a tendency toward fiction rather than direct stories from her life.

On the topic of her own work, Kyrah expresses her poetic pride and notes that her pieces are often lengthy and descriptive. “The depth that I’m able to express on the paper - it amazes me every time.” She explains that the writing may at first seem dark but there's plenty of light to be found in the untangling of emotions, issues, and thoughts in order to best reflect upon the intricacies of life.

As both an Encounters staff member and frequent poet, some of her work has been published in the magazine for the world to see. She explains, sharing her work can be a pretty terrifying process: “When they’re reading it, I wonder how they’re gonna react - because every poem comes from some element of my life.”

At the same time, however, she hopes that her readers can relate to whatever dissatisfaction or problem with which the poem is grappling; especially young women, who may relate to the poem “Her Growth.” This particular poem contains many elements regarding finding your own place in the world, regardless of the obstacles or people holding you back. Like the subject of the poem itself, Kyrah is constantly creating, growing, and carving out her own creative space in the world.