The young author of “The American Experience”, Franky Duran, expresses himself through inspiring poetry that any college kid could relate to. 

By: Amber Zahriyeh 

Franky Duran used to wait at the CSI Saint George bus stop daily, jotting down his poetry as his life gave him his ups and downs.

Duran created The American Experience; not having the expectations of it becoming a published book. From age 7 onward, his love for poetry grew, leading him to become a published author by age 19.

“I first started writing as a therapeutic way of dealing with life,” said Duran. “You don’t need money or a lot of effort to write what’s on your mind”.

In 2018, Duran used to post his poems from his notes on his phone onto the app Instagram. After putting his poetic voice out in the open, he began to thrive off the outpour of love from his friends and family, this pushing Duran to officially publish his book.

Duran accomplished this by first going straight to his friend, Anthony, to find out the ins and outs of finding a way to get “The American Experience” onto one of the world’s biggest shopping platforms, Amazon. This brought Duran to have over 60 copies sold which are impressive for someone without a star-studded name.

“My friend Anthony introduced me to the way of self-publishing through Amazon a couple of months before everyone was enjoying my Instagram content,” said Duran. “So the idea just stuck in my head honestly, so I kept writing and writing with the hope of filling enough pages that people would be interested in”.

Duran’s favorite poem out of the book is titled Pain, a poem that has caused many to empathize with his thoughts. He was the most vulnerable while writing this piece due to losing his grandmother.

Duran back into the groove of writing poetry simply because it moves and helps people through grief or any pain as well.

“I feel successful when someone comes up to me and tells me my book has helped them,” Duran said. “Honestly, I could live on that feeling.”

You can check out The American Experience written by Franky Duran on Amazon or Goodreads.