The project’s goals are:

1) TO REVEAL POETRY AS A LIVING ART.
Today, all around the world, poetry is finding its way back into everyday life -- a poetry that’s relevant, a poetry that’s fun. This movement has been underfunded, underappreciated, and next to invisible. Its driving force has been to return meaning to the word-- to challenge the homogenization and devolution of language as brought about by mass advertising, political rhetoric, and other abuses. The poet is at the heart of our project, speaking from his own experience and culture, person-to-person, assuring the poems’ integrity as they are translated through media into The World of Poetry.

2) TO PROMOTE CULTURAL EXCHANGE, TOLERANCE, AND UNDERSTANDING THROUGH THE POWER OF THE INDIVIDUAL VOICE.
Today’s world is filled with opportunity and urgency: we must begin listening to each other, respecting others' ways, sharing Truth. New media has afforded us the means of communicating in ways never before imagined. The voice of the poet carries the power to represent the human agenda. Through the oldest of the arts we will create a means for understanding the complexities of the contemporary world.

3) TO CELEBRATE THE WORLD’S VISUAL AND SPOKEN LANDSCAPES.
The World of Poetry will use the words of poets to show links between cultures as subtle as rhythm, as funny as a phrase twisted into a joke, as painful as the deep regions of the heart. A poet’s imagination is without bounds: an urban poet in Beirut, Paris, or Compton writes about the open sea; a farmer in Cuba, China, or the United States longs for his fields from a jail cell. A poet’s physical environment need not define the poem’s landscape. We will follow the words themselves, filming the poem in ways that find the harmonies between the poets’ and filmmakers’ aesthetics, editing to reveal a richness of geographic and cultural diversity.

4) TO PRESERVE ORAL TRADITIONS AND ENDANGERED LANGUAGES.
Environmentalists have rallied to save species of flora and fauna from extinction; The World of Poetry will protect the fragile ecosystem of languages. We will preserve local oral traditions as well as provide a forum for emerging voices threatened with marginalization. Our project will be a record of how languages sounded and how poetry persevered at the start of the new Millenium.

5) TO INSPIRE THOUGHT, READING, WRITING, AND LISTENING.
Poetry is a contact sport. The poets say "Speak out! Listen up! Be conscious of the power of words!" By bringing poetry back into our cultures, we take a step towards becoming nations of thinkers and doers instead of passive observers and consumers. All work produced by The World of Poetry will lead to the page, the Net, the CD-ROM. All texts will be published and made available through books and study guides. In The World of Poetry education and entertainment go hand-in-hand.

6) TO UTILIZE THE POWER OF NEW MEDIA TO PRESENT THE SINGULAR VOICES OF POETS.
Poetry must fight to cut through the clutter of hundreds of digital channels and millions of competing web-sites. The World of Poetry challenges filmmakers and designers with content that demands new forms, and challenges poets to translate their words through new media.

7) TO DEVELOP NEW AUDIENCES FOR POETRY AND PUBLIC TELEVISON.
The format of The World of Poetry allows the work to show up as a traditionally scheduled program or when it’s least expected: before a film, instead of a commercial, at a kiosk, or on your computer -- the possibilities are limitless. We, of course, hope to attract an ever-growing audience for poetry, but we particularly hope to engage:

• The Unheard. This series showcases voices from all over the world, from all walks of life. These aren’t actors, celebrities or spokespeople. The language is real, the ideas raw and uncensored. There are no concepts too simple or too extreme. For many viewers this will be their first chance to see themselves in the new media, not in the context of "other news," but as a vital part of the international community.
• Fans of Literature, Poetry, and other Arts. The World of Poetrywill appeal to those who are losing faith in the fine arts’ ability to thrive in our media-saturated society.
• Young People. The series will have a style and content that reflects the concerns, emotions, questions, and energy of today's young people.

In all of its forms The World of Poetry will appeal to viewers by simply being great entertainment. The program is a Twenty-First Century multi-media variety show filled with drama, humor, and, of course, poetry.