I have found that poplar and pine both engrave very well. They are soft enough that you can engrave deeply.
The darker hardwoods are nice if you’re going for a more subtle look but the engraving isn’t going to be as deep because the woods are harder. You’re going to get much more contrast on a lighter wood like poplar.
You could also use basically any wood, including a nice piece of baltic birch plywood (that you can buy in 12" x 12" and larger at places like Woodcraft or Rockler) but the engraving depth is likely to be less in plywood and with more char.
Plan to at least lightly sand the face after engraving to remove the remains of the laser soot, but be careful not to sand so aggressively that you remove the small bits inside letters like “e”.
Try to engrave with the long grain of the wood parallel to the front of the laser bed. The laser will make passes from right to left (and back) so the engraving will be slightly nicer that way.
An alternate approach is to liberally paint the engraved section after engraving and then sand the un-engraved portion flat to remove the excess paint.