BOOKING A READING AT PLANET EARTH POETRY

Planet Earth Poetry celebrates NEW POETRY, offering in-person events every week from September—June (with a break in December). We feature local poets and poets from across Canada (as well as an occasional international poet). We feature as many as 75 poets per season, and yet we cannot book everyone. We’ll do our best to include you, but please understand that we may have to say no for any number of reasons, but usually because of space.

Planet Earth Poetry is run entirely by volunteers (mostly poets). BEFORE filling out the contact form to inquire about a reading, please read the following sections. (If you email us with questions that can be answered on this page, we will kindly direct you back to this page.)

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Please address all booking inquiries to the Artistic Director, Kyeren Regehr.

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POETS & PUBLISHERS:
If you are a poet with a new or forthcoming book, or a publisher/publicist representing a poet, please note that the first half of Season 30 is FULLY BOOKED (Sept-Dec 2025). Bookings for the second half of Season 30 (Jan-June 2025) are now in progress, and we’re already looking quite full.

We’d still love to hear from you—sometimes a spot will open up! Please note that for logistical purposes, we generally book touring/out-of-province poets first (within a finite amount of spots), and then place our local/provincial poets. Our aim is to offer first preference to poets from communities under-served by the Canadian literary establishment. We sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding.
We are not booking Season 31 (Sept 2026-June 2027) at this time, but have begun a list of possible poets.

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POET MEDIA & PROMOTION

Planet Earth Poetry offers consistent and personalized promotion for every poet we book on Instagram and Facebook, via our website, and in our weekly newsletters.

After booking your event, we will send you a confirmation letter—depending on when you contact us, it might be several months or several days before you receive your letter (we are volunteer-run and thank you for your patience). If you need a confirmation letter for grant applications, do let us know and we’ll send it as soon as possible.

Please take three minutes to read your confirmation letter THOROUGHLY. If you do not know how to label image files, please read the accompanying file-labeling document. We have specific media requirement, including labeling. If poets or publishers fail to label files correctly, in may result in the poet not receiving promotion on our social media, in our weekly newsletters and on our website.

HOW TO SEND YOUR MEDIA:

Please email these THREE items (labeled as below) in ONE SINGLE email with “MEDIA” in the subject line:

✅ (1) High-resolution headshot
Label: READING DATE_Poet Name_HEADSHOT
(e.g. OCT 5_Sylvia Plath_HEADSHOT)

✅ (2) High-resolution book cover (front cover only)
 Label: READING DATE_Poet Name_BOOKCOVER
(e.g. OCT 5_Sylvia Plath_BOOKCOVER)

✅ (3) Single Word file including:
Label: READING DATE_Poet Name_TEXT
(e.g. OCT 5_Sylvia Plath_TEXT)

  • Max 80-word book description

  • Max 50-word bio

  • Social media handles, website, publisher’s handles (for tagging)

  • Pronouns (for our hosts)

  • Honorarium payment preference (etransfer preferred; let us know if not possible)

  • Written permission for livestream & YouTube (“I give you permission to…”)

  • Note if funder logos (League, TWUC, etc.) must be included

    PLEASE NOTE:
    We truly believe that people capable of writing publishable collections of poetry are also capable of following these instructions. It helps us IMMENSELY! 75 poets x 3 files is 225 files—we are no longer labeling files for poets. Please ask a friend or family member, a colleague, your neighbour, your publisher…

    We have five volunteers accessing our google drive of files to create all of the media—the labeling system is essential to reduce work.

    If files are not sent and labeled correctly, we might miss including you and your book in our promo material.

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HONORARIA & the flow of our events:

At Planet Earth Poetry we do our best to offer industry standard honoraria for a 15 min reading. Honoraria is generally paid via etransfer.

The flow of evening looks like this:
OPEN MIC: 30 min open mic (community sign up when doors open)
BREAK: 10 min break for the audience to buy books directly from the featured poets (you bring your books, you keep the cash)
READING: two featured poets read for 15 mins each
WRAP UP: audience can buy books for 15-20 mins while we pack up (and then the bookstore will close)

Sometimes we offer special events, and we deviate from this format, including honoraria—we aim to inform you, during the booking process, of any deviations.

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VENUES:

Our live events are open to the public and wheelchair accessible!
Our season runs from Sept-June with a break in December.

Friday Night Poetry: 7:30pm Russell Books 100-747 Fort Street, Downtown Victoria, BC
Doors at 7pm, open mic sign up IN PERSON 7ish-7:20pm

Afternoon Poetry: ONCE a month on Friday at 2pm (see homepage for dates) James Bay New Horizons 230 Menzies St, Victoria, BC
Doors at 1:30pm, open mic sign up IN PERSON 1:30-1:50pm

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LIVESTREAM & YOUTUBE:
We aim to begin the livestream of our Featured Poets after the open mic, at around 8:05pm.
Access livestream: HERE (Zoom credentials: Meeting ID: 494 660 4447 /Passcode: 2129)

Our featured readers will be posted on Planet Earth Poetry’s YOUTUBE, usually within a week of the live reading (sometimes poets choose not to be posted or livestreamed).

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Thank you so much for inquiring about sharing your work with Planet Earth Poetry! We hope to celebrate you poetry with you and offer you an incredible community to read for (and a sensational venue to read in!) :)