The World of Poetry began production last October with a series of bilingual readings held at New York City’s Biblios Café Bookstore. The "World of Poetry Reading Series" ran from October 14, 1997 to May 27, 1998. In addition to the readings held at Biblios, The World of Poetry collaborated with the Poetry Project to film readings held at St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery Church of New York City by poets relevant to our project.

The readings brought together a large multi-cultural audience to see performances by international, émigré, and exiled poets and their English-language translators. Each of the readings was followed by an interview conducted by the host and emcee of the series, World of Poetry producer Bob Holman.

Working behind the scenes at each of the readings was a film crew who documented the events using High-8 and Digital Video cameras. Some of this footage is now available here in the World of Poetry Anthology Preview.