Book Launch: "Slow Burn" by National Youth Poet Laureate Evan Wang

Celebrate National Poetry Month with an evening of poetry at the book launch for Evan Wang's new chapbook, Slow Burn. At this event, you'll hear readings by Evan Wang (National Youth Poet Laureate), Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah (Boston Poet Laureate), and Ailin Sha (Boston Youth Poet Laureate).

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About Slow Burn

Persistent yet flickering, Slow Burn unveils a passionate world where love is both impossible and inevitable. Divided into three sections, Evan Wang’s debut chapbook traces the confrontation of the self through a cyclical journey of discovery and contradiction, ultimately leading to the choice of allowance: that which is made by the reader. Slow Burn is a romantic’s answer to the search for love, and the strangely comforting realization that the effects of the world mark us all.

About Evan Wang

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.

About Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah

Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah (they/he) is a Ghanaian American poet, editor, and educator living out the diaspora in Boston, Massachusetts. For six years they taught 11th grade English at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and prior to that served as a teaching artist at organizations throughout Boston. They have very recently (September 2023) transitioned from teaching high school English, and are currently working as a school librarian at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester, Boston (it's a K-8!). While they miss their high schoolers, Emmanuel says the transition to working with littles, particularly kids growing up in the city they themself grew up in, has been incredibly joyful and life-giving. The pursuit of joy, and that which sustains life, is essential to their creative practice, and to their practice of living. Emmanuel's first chapbook, "not without small joys" (published in 2021 by Game Over Books Press) explores the centrality of joy as an animating force, especially in the face of human suffering. In their free time, they enjoy hot carbs, afternoons spent playing board games, and the long sigh at the end of a good book.

About Ailin Sha

Ailin Sha is a poet and writer based in Boston. Originally from Beijing, China, she moved to Boston with her mother and sister at age eleven. She attended Boston Latin School and is currently a first-year at Harvard College, where she plans to study English and Economics with a minor in Film. She is a member of the Harvard Advocate, the oldest continuously published college literary magazine in the United States, where she serves on the Poetry Board. She also plays the violin in the Bach Society Orchestra, the largest student-run orchestra at the college. In her free time, she loves to watch and discuss films, write, try new foods, and learn languages.