Upper Merion graduating senior Evan Wang has just made national history, writes Emily Neil for WHYY.
Wang was named the 2024 National Youth Poet Laureate, the first male in the title’s nine-year history. Eighteen-year-old Wang has been writing since childhood, but it was a racially charged encounter during the pandemic that fueled his rise as a poet and activist.
His poem, “The Blood We Inherit, The Blood We Spill,” became a rallying cry within his school district. The poem launched his journey into civic poetry.
In 2022, Wang helped establish Montco’s first Youth Poet Laureate program. He partnered with the county’s adult laureate office and was eventually named its inaugural honoree. During his term, he led writing workshops at over a dozen local libraries, engaged more than 400 teens, and even spoke at the White House.
Now, Wang plans to use national platform to expand poetry’s presence in pop culture and civic life. “Poetry no longer just lives on the page,” he says. “It is rallying call … a form of resistance.”
Wang is heading to Harvard this fall to study biology and creative writing and is already working on a choral piece with Mendelssohn Chorus for a 2026 premiere.
To read more about Upper Merion High School’s Evan Wang and his mission, visit WHYY.
