The 2025 title
WHYY, the Philadelphia public broadcaster, reported on 24 May 2025 that Evan Wang, a senior at Upper Merion Area High School in King of Prussia, had been crowned National Youth Poet Laureate. He was 18. The detail the story led with was not his age but his gender: in nine years of the programme, no male poet had held the national title before him.
The appointment is administered by Urban Word, whose National Youth Poet Laureate site carries Wang's profile alongside the roster of earlier holders, among them Alyssa Gaines, named the sixth laureate at the Kennedy Center in 2022. One writer a year takes the title. That is the whole scale of it.
How it started in Montgomery County
The national title sits on top of a ladder of local ones, and Wang climbed it. He was the inaugural Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate, the county-level appointment that preceded the national one, and he won the Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize in 2024.
That sequence matters more than it looks. A national laureate is not plucked out of a slush pile; the programme works through regional and city laureates, and Wang's county title was the first of its kind in his area. He went from a newly created local post to the national one inside two years.
Harvard, and a book with a date
Most teenage prize winners disappear from the record the week after the ceremony. Wang does not. The sources here carry two concrete next steps: Harvard from the autumn of 2025, and a debut collection, Slow Burn, listed from Northwestern University Press for 2026.
A university press contract is a harder fact than most things written about young writers. It means the work was taken by an academic publisher with a poetry list rather than self-issued, and it gives readers a dated object to check rather than a promise. Anyone wanting to test this profile should start there.
Why the first-male detail was the story
Youth poetry in the United States has been publicly dominated by young women since the programme's early years, and the National Youth Poet Laureate title is the piece of it that reaches the widest audience. WHYY framed Wang's win around that record precisely because nine consecutive appointments had gone elsewhere.
The framing is a fact about the programme, not a judgement about the poems. Nothing in the coverage suggests Wang was chosen for anything other than the writing, and nothing in it sets out the selection panel's reasoning in detail. Treat the first-male line as what it is: a statistic about nine years of appointments.
What is documented and what is not
Documented: the 2025 national title, the age of 18, the school and home town in Pennsylvania, the inaugural county laureateship, the 2024 Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize, the Harvard place and the announced Northwestern University Press collection.
Not documented here: his date of birth, his family, the contents of Slow Burn, and any reading of his work beyond the fact of the prizes. Evan Wang is also a common name, and search results mix him with unrelated people; the poet is the one attached to Upper Merion Area High School and the 2025 laureateship.
Watch: Evan Wang on camera
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evan Wang | United States | 2025 National Youth Poet Laureate; first male holder | Age 17 |
| Alyssa Gaines | United States | Sixth US National Youth Poet Laureate (2022) | Age 18 |
| Stephanie Pacheco | United States | 2024 National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States | — |
| Salome Agbaroji | United States | From a Los Angeles high school stage to the Golden Globes, a halftime show | — |
| Meera Dasgupta | United States | The fourth National Youth Poet Laureate was chosen on a live stream, from | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Crowned 2025 National Youth Poet Laureate at 18 (WHYY, 24 May 2025)
- First male holder of the national title in nine years
- Senior at Upper Merion Area High School, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania
- Inaugural Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate; 2024 Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- Exact date of birth is not published in these sources
- Contents and publication date of Slow Burn beyond the 2026 listing
- No detail on the selection panel's reasoning
Questions people ask about Evan Wang
How old is Evan Wang?
WHYY reported he was 18 when he was crowned National Youth Poet Laureate in May 2025. No date of birth appears in these sources.
What is Evan Wang known for?
Being crowned the 2025 National Youth Poet Laureate, the first male poet to hold the title in the programme's nine-year history.
Where is Evan Wang from?
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where he attended Upper Merion Area High School.
Where is Evan Wang now?
The sources record him at Harvard from the autumn of 2025.
Has Evan Wang published a book?
A debut collection, Slow Burn, is listed from Northwestern University Press for 2026.
Is Evan Wang on Wikipedia?
No English Wikipedia article is recorded for him. WHYY's report and his laureate profile are the primary references.
Was he the first male youth poet laureate?
WHYY reported he was the first male holder of the national title in the programme's nine years.
What was his first poetry title?
He was the inaugural Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate before winning the national appointment.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Evan’s story?
What record did Evan Wang set in 2025?
Which university did he head to?
What is his debut collection called?
Sources
- Montgomery County high school senior crowned national youth poet laureate — WHYY, 2025-05-24
- Evan Wang — National Youth Poet Laureate (Urban Word)
- Alyssa Gaines is named National Youth Poet Laureate — NPR, 2022-05-27
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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