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
Save the dates, we are headed to Orlando, FL June 9th – 13th. Click the button below to get more information!
Upcoming Workshops
From Mic to Manuscript: Getting Slam Poems Published Without Losing Your Voice - Khalisa Rae
Feb 8, 2026 – 3PM EST
Spoken word and slam poetry are powerful, embodied art forms—but many poets struggle to translate that power to the page or navigate literary publishing spaces that privilege quiet, minimalist aesthetics over performance-rooted work. This workshop demystifies the publishing world for slam poets and spoken word artists, offering practical tools for adapting stage poems for print without sanding down their voice.


#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! 2025 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