Harvard Book Store welcomes Evan Wang—9th National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States and the first male and Chinese individual to hold this title—for a discussion of his poetry collection, Slow Burn. He will be joined in conversation by Cindion Huang—first-year student studying English and Economics at Harvard College and prize-winning poet.
Evan Wang (王潇) is the 9th National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, the first male and Chinese individual to hold this title, and author of Slow Burn (Northwestern University Press, 2026), the youngest winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. His work appears in POETRY Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Waxwing, The Harvard Advocate, and elsewhere. Deemed a “prodigy” by Teen Vogue, Evan has been featured at and recognized by the Biden White House, the United Nations, the Smithsonian Institution, and Google DeepMind. Evan is a first-year student at Harvard College.
Cindion Huang is a first-year student studying English and Economics at Harvard College. Her poems appear in the Harvard Independent, Harvard Undergraduate Tuesday Magazine, The Incandescent Review, and TeenWritersProject Quarterly. Raised in Shanghai, she first encountered poetry through classical Chinese verse and later became enraptured by the traditions of English literature. Her work has received several Scholastic Gold Keys, the Brian Ford Writing Prize, and finalist recognition at the Hill-Stead Museum Poetry Competition. Cindion is currently taking a poetry workshop with Tina Chang, Brooklyn Poet Laureate, and teaching creative writing to international Chinese high school students passionate about the craft of writing.