Evan Wang never thought of himself as an activist, and, for a while, he didn’t think of himself as a poet either. But after years of challenging himself to change the way he sees failure and advocating for other people through his writing, he, one day, said: yes. I am a poet.

Now, he is the ninth National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, and he uses his voice to advocate for other young people making change in their communities.

“People always say, ‘the youth is the future,’ but they are also the now,” Wang said.

This year, the organizers of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival asked Wang to write a poem for welcome ceremony, and, when thinking about the power of youth, he found it in a bellflower.

Inspired by poet Maggie Smith’s “Goldenrod,” Wang felt drawn to the theme of nature and wanted to find a flower that he too found beautiful and metaphorical. The bellflower, or campanula flower, is bell-shaped and has echo characteristics that are long and complex, used by bats to recognize the nectar source in these flowers. For Wang, the bellflower reminds him of teenagers, who he said are like echo chambers.

“I went ahead with the piece basically from the perspective of a flower growing in the ground and seeing how we can weather through this tumultuous climate right now,” Wang said.

“Bellflower”
By Evan Wang

I begin where you end, friend. Through the headlines and white smoke, I watch you echo across this barren field. Somewhere in our little lives, you are cashiering in a local supermarket. You are teaching karate to kids with autism, attending university for your family for the first time, performing poetry in the heart of a nation. And there is no choice for you but to bloom from the fist of protest, on the backs of politics, grasping for a friend’s hand while they are dragged into the sunset—disappeared into memory. I know you too well, swaying in this wind. Standing in this wind. You are learning to love. As the birds above rain down their harsh opinions.

As the hard soil beneath becomes uninhabitable. No one has saved a space for you in this real, busy world, but you remain beautiful. You are of this. I am trying to convince you, colorful friend—prettying under every condition of daylight—you are outgrowing this wilderness. And there is still beauty because there is still you. Every morning, there is still beauty because there is still you.

Wang is the editor-in-chief of an international creative arts magazine, Hominum, which publishes poetry, prose, arts, fashion, and plays written by minority voices. In addition to volunteer work for Planned Parenthood and Penn Medicine, he is the director of the Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate Program, raising funds for arts programming in his county. Next fall, he’ll start his first year at Harvard University.

“You realize that by pursuing what you’re passionate in, you’re also opening doors for other people,” Wang said. At the Festival, reading alongside other youth poet laureates has spared these kinds of door-opening conversations. “There’s people that come up to me and said, ‘my experience is exactly the same as yours.’”

“I think me telling my own story—my own experiences and how I view the world—ultimately benefits the entire community.”

Cassie Roshu is a media intern at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and an incoming senior at Syracuse University majoring in photojournalism and international relations.

Rameshwar Bhatt is a filmmaker from Ahmedabad, India, participating with the Emerging Media Makers at the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.