Meryl Streep, Tony Kushner, Courtney B. Vance, Paul Giamatti, Anna Deveare Smith, Emanuel Ax, Phillipa Soo, J Wortham, Glenn Ligon, Merve Emre, Sterlin Harjo, Jericho Brown and National Student Poet Miles Hardingwood are among the luminaries and cultural leaders who will read new and favorite poems at Poetry & the Creative Mind on April 30, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. EDT. Poetry & the Creative Mind, which has raised more than $3.3 million over the years, is produced by the Academy of American Poets, the nation’s leading champion of poets and poetry, as a National Poetry Month celebration every April. Coinciding with the Academy’s ninetieth anniversary this year, the event raises critical funds for the organization’s award-winning K–12 Education Program, which includes free lesson plans for teachers on Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly-funded resource for poets and poetry. The benefit also provides support for Dear Poet, a special writing project for thousands of students nationwide, as well as for a new series of poetry workshops in New York City schools. You can read the full press release here. Meryl has a long history with Poetry & the Creative Mind, having more or less regularly attended all benefits since its inauguration in 2003, as you can read here.