We warmly invite our open mic participants to follow these easy rules when participating in our POETRY ONLY open mic:

1. All poets get to read one poem (even if it’s really short).

2. Poems must be no longer than 3 minutes.

3. No misogyny, homophobia, racism, antisemitism, etc.

SPECIAL NOTE: Hosting the open mic is not an easy gig, please be gentle with our hosts. Our hosts are all skilled volunteers (and poets themselves), and while they do their best, they sometimes make mistakes—thank you kindly for understanding. :)

OPEN MIC at Planet Earth Poetry: REVISED PROCEDURE

Our Friday Night Open Mic is the longest running open mic in Victoria—consistently making space for local poetry since 1995. (And at 29 years, we’re one of the oldest poetry open mics in Canada!)

We offer our weekly community open mic EVERY FRIDAY AT RUSSELL BOOKS VICTORIA (unless otherwise specified on the homepage of this website or on our social media).
We also offer a MONTHLY community open mic at NEW HORIZONS in James Bay (please see our HOMEPAGE for this month’s date).

It is our joy to welcome all voices and all styles of poetry to our community--we love hearing you read!
PLEASE SEE OUR OPEN MIC ETIQUETTE, as well as revised our sign-up procedure below.

We’re trying something new—we’re not sure if it’ll work, but we’re giving it a go (and if it fails miserably, we’ll ditch it):

REVISED Friday Night Sign-up Procedure at Russell Books—
~ Between 7:00-7:15pm, the host will take a list of potential poets.
~ When sign-up is over, the host will select the poets for the evening.
~ WE’RE HOPING TO FILL (but not set on it, or expecting it):
2 SPOTS for our POEM-A-MONTH CHALLENGE to this season’s featured readers.
2 SPOTS for NEW VOICES—anyone who has never read at a Planet Earth Poetry open mic.
2 SPOTS for voices we’ve not heard in a while (a month or more).
2-4 SPOTS for regulars who didn’t read during the previous TWO WEEKS.
~ Any remaining spots will be filled fairly as possible at the host’s discretion.
~ We have many new hosts and may not be able to keep names in reserve for the following week.

All that being said, we LOVE hearing you read—you are always very welcome to ask for a spot, and in any given week we might not get any new voices or response poems, so please do ask!

Open mic begins at 7:30pm, followed by two featured poets reading from a recently released poetry collections.
RUSSELL BOOKS: 747 Fort St #100, Victoria, BC V8W 3E9

MONTHLY AFTERNOON COMMUNITY OPEN MIC
We also host a monthly open mic at New Horizons in James Bay: sign up begins at 1:30pm (and it’s usually pretty easy to get on the list for this one every time!) Please see our homepage for DATES, which vary month to month.
Open mic begins at 2:00pm, followed by one of our out-of-town featured poets, reading from a recently released poetry collection.
NEW HORIZONS: 234 Menzies Street, Victoria BC

We aim to give preference to voices we've not heard before, or that we've not heard in a while, but you're always welcome to ask for a spot, and we're always happy to see you, even if we can’t offer you a spot. We try to fit everyone in, but it's not always possible. Our livestream opens for the Featured Poets at around 8pm, and for this reason we try to finish our open mic promptly.

On rare occasions there is no open mic, and we aim to add this to our social media when advertising those special events.

We have a mutual respect policy on our website, and everyone is welcome to read it. We're really big on mutual respect and community building (as evidenced by nearly three decades of service to poets and poetry!)

We can't wait to hear what you've been working on! Thank you for bringing your poetry to our open mic.

You’re also welcome to read poetry from other poets—this is a great way for us to bring other voices to our community!