Emi Wong Shing, a senior at Germantown Friends School, has been named the 2026-2027 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate, and she is making it look easy.

“I can officially call myself a poet and writer,” Shing said. “I’ve obviously become the Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia recently, so it’s been interesting navigating that, as it is a new role that I’ve stepped into.”

Nerves are still high, but Shing is proud of the work she has put into the world during her high school career. More importantly, she is proud of where she is from and who has affected her along the way.

“I’m Trinidadian and Dominican,” Shing said. “My parents are immigrants. I’ve always had that Caribbean influence on my life, so it’s been such a big part of my identity.”

As an Afro-Caribbean poet and fiction writer, her poetry has been grounded in understanding the African Diaspora and how Black culture is understood around the world.

“I sort of discovered the poet, Kamau Brathwaite, and he was voicing a lot of themes and ideas I was thinking about,” Shing said.

Kamau Brathwaite was a Caribbean writer, born in Bridgetown, Barbados, who wrote about the different experiences in Black culture in the African diaspora and how it is lived throughout the world.

His poetry exposed people to the history of Caribbean culture, and he often talked about being set apart from other creative writers because of the language he spoke.

Shing added, “I was like, wow, I really do want to follow this thread of African Diaspora and these Caribbean identities. Following that through my work, I look to ... exploring these kinds of ideas.”

Shing’s work has been recognized throughout her high school career through Gold Key medals, offered by the Alliance for Youth Authors and Writers. It is one of the major achievements a high school student can earn on a regional level.

“I won two scholastic Gold Keys in my sophomore year,” Shing said. “Everyone’s like, submit to [the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards], so I just submitted a couple things that I was working on and then I got recognition for them, which was pretty cool.”

She also received an American Voices nomination in 2024 and credits her teachers for giving her the push she needed.

“I did the Kenyon Review Young Writers program and the Iowa Young Writers Studio,” Shing said. “I felt super accomplished when I got into those, and I had so much fun doing them.”

Navigating a crowded schedule as the city’s Youth Poet Laureate and a senior at Germantown Friends, Shing is also working to make time for personal poetry projects, applying to college, and focusing on her last year of high school.

Additionally, she hopes to do more with her new role, by accessing newly available resources and planning workshops.

“I do hope that with this position I can show people how awesome it is, and how everyone should start writing poetry,” Shing said. “If you look at writing as more practice instead of like the outcome, you will find a lot more joy in it and you’ll have a lot more work, and you’ll be prouder of your finished pieces.”