The first ever winner of this event was Patricia Smith, who would go on to win the Individual National Poetry Slam Championship title four times, a record she shares with Ed Mabrey.
[1] Starting in 2004, Poetry Slam Inc (PSI) decided to host a separate event called the Individual World Poetry Slam (iWPS), in which solo poets (not teams of poets) competed for the championship title.
When PSI dissolved, the name was taken by the Dallas Poetry Slam who planned to organize the event in 2020.
[9] After being derailed for years by the pandemic, iWPS is rumored to return in 2023 under new leadership.
The tournament has two days of preliminary rounds, in which poets compete in 1, 2, 3, and 4 minute bouts.