Keyaira Kelly does not describe writing as a hobby, a side quest, or a cute creative outlet. 

This is “Still We Write,” a series that profiles Black contemporary poets in honor of National Poetry Month. For this installment, we spoke with Kelly, a writer, poet, and journalist whose words honor process, protect the spirit, and remind us that writing is still a radical act of faith, memory, and Black womanhood.

Kelly describes writing as resistance, saying that in a moment when “creativity and artistry are under attack, the audacity to still participate in the art of writing…that’s revolutionary, that’s often rebellion.”

Kelly’s own lineage is her foundation;  she’s inspired by the Black women sharecroppers in her family who “didn’t have a chance to have education” and were not able to read and write at the level she has been privileged to do. That history, she said, is part of what makes the work feel generational. “Writers hold the human story. It keeps us honest and raw and alive and remembered,” she said.

That sense of responsibility also shapes how Kelly thinks about the process itself. She pushed back on the idea that modern culture should reward speed over labor, saying, “There is just nothing in nature that moves without process.” Writing, she said, reminds us that “you can’t skip steps,” whether that means deleting and rewriting a sentence or letting yourself sit with a thought until it reveals its shape. “When you skip steps,” she warned, “you actually handicap your own genius.”

As a journalist, poet and wellness writer, Kelly sees poetry as the foundation underneath everything she creates. “There is not anything that I write journalistically that doesn’t have metaphors, that doesn’t have similes,” she said. “Poetry to me is, like, the life force that is in all my writing.” For her, poetry is not separate from reporting, spirituality, or storytelling; it feeds them all.

Kelly’s first poetry collection, “I Wish My Mango Would Ripen,” taught her as much about the publishing industry as it did about womanhood. What began as a deeply personal body of work turned into a painful self-publishing experience when she worked with an independent publisher who, she said, failed her professionally. But Kelly still found a way to carry the project across the finish line, using her own savings and a refund check to fund the book’s release and launch in Harlem. That same determination feels alive in her latest Coffee Cove collaboration with Rachel Ellis, where her haikus meet Ellis’ coffee-based abstract art. It is a beautiful extension of the same instinct that has guided Kelly’s career all along: make the work, protect the work, and keep finding new ways to let it bloom.

Kelly also opened up about the deeply personal and often overlooked dimensions of Black womanhood, especially the experience of being childless and unmarried while still carrying immense nurturing energy. She said that women like her are “completely underrepresented,” and that she is learning to define fulfillment outside of patriarchal expectations. “I get to enjoy that guilt-free,” she said. “My poetry is a part of enjoying this.”

That honesty extends to her relationship with vulnerability. “Pretty much everything that anyone sees me do publicly, I have dealt with it in the prayer closet privately for months,” she said. “Poetry preserves my sensitive Black girl.”

When asked what advice Kelly would give a young Black girl like herself, self-trust was key. “Already feeling proud of yourself before anyone else,” she said. 

When it comes to why we should still write, her answer is simple and powerful, “Just do it for the one.” Kelly’s belief and conviction is that if her words just touch one person, she’s done enough.