The text below gives our best advice. If you're planning a reading at a grade school or high school be sure to check out the suggestions for readings in schools . The planning required for the reading will depend upon how you design the event.
More formal events tend to go better, but they take more planning.
A carefully produced community event involves a selection process. You should start planning about six to eight weeks before the scheduled date, so that you can solicit and select readers. Such events have the advantage of assembling an exciting variety of readers and poems. Your early publicity can ask people from your community to send their favorite poems to a central place, along with a brief statement about the poems' significance in their lives. You or your staff will make the selections for your event and will extend invitations to those selected.