Al Letson is a poet, playwright, performer and is now host and executive producer of his own national radio show, State of the Re:Union. Letson avoided college in large part due to his dyslexia and the myriad challenges that the learning disorder presents in the academic world and instead became a student of his favorite poets and playwrights.

Spoken word was Al's initial foray into performance art. While he was influenced by literature and hip-hop, Al found a great deal of inspiration in watching the PBS documentary on poetry by Bill Moyers called The Language of Life. In particular, he was moved to embrace poetry as an outlet by Seku Sundiata's poem, Dijerrido, which was featured in the documentary. Other important spoken word influences for Letson include:

Al wrote, practiced and refined until he felt he was ready to perform in public. He discovered the National Poetry Slam competition and in 1998, utilized his position as a flight attendant to go to Austin, Texas, where he participated in his first Slam competition. After his performance, he was embraced by the professional performance poetry circuit. He quickly built a following and was often asked by audiences to perform certain poems.