About Southern Fried Poetry Slam
Southern Fried Poetry Slam is an annual performing arts festival celebrating poetry, spoken word, and community outreach.
Born in 1993 from a sense of family, home cooked meals and good ol’ Southern food, Southern Fried Poetry shares the absolute best southern offerings — hospitality, comfort and tradition.
During the first week of June every year, a city in the Southeastern region of the United States plays host to one of the largest Spoken Word and Performance Poetry tournaments in the world and showcases some of the world’s most extraordinary writers, orators and artists whose talents will be on full display as they compete against 200+ poets for cash and prizes, and of course bragging rights to the South!
Southern Fried Poetry Slam
Orlando, FL
We are headed to Orlando, FL June 9th – 13th. Click the buttons below for more information on the tournament, getting tickets, volunteer signup, and registration!
Upcoming Workshops
'Like, for What?' - Steven Willis
June 7, 2026 – 3PM EST
Join us for our next workshop given by Steven Willis which will cover the practical use for the Simile in poetry and spoken word. Hosted on Zoom, check out our Facebook page for the workshop link.
Steven Willis is a poet, theater artist, and educator whose work centers language as a living, embodied practice. Born and raised in Chicago, his writing and performance draw from urban life, spirituality, and African American cultural memory, blending the immediacy of spoken word with the rigor of literary craft and theatrical intention. His work engages hip hop poetics, performance theory, and critical pedagogy to explore identity, power, and communal responsibility.
#SoFriedWrites
In 2023, we started planning several different platforms to support writers outside of busy competition. In an effort to implement this, we are bringing you monthly prompts with guided questions to support you in creating. We encourage you to take the time to write, create, and share. This can be expressed however you are led in written form.
That being said, Happy New Year! 2026 is upon us, and as we continue to strive to be better stewards to this art thing we do, challenge yourself and your peers to join you in pushing to reach new goals. Let us continue to support each other and most of all, have fun along the way. You can share them with us in the Facebook group, or via email at info@southernfriedpoetryslam.com. Use the hashtag #sofriedwrites. We look forward to seeing your pieces. 💙💙💙
And your 2025 Knoxville, TN winners are…
Meet the New Southern Fried Board Members!
Louisville 2022 Update
Hispanic Heritage Month
#SF2021 Bout Scores