My first poetry was found in between the beats in hip hop songs of the nineties. 

As a ‘too tall’ white girl raised in a middle-class cul-de-sac outside DC, I didn’t quite fit in with hip hop culture. 

So I wrote in little black notebooks and kept them hidden. Even if I wanted to read what I wrote–rhymes with a rhythm that were designed to be heard–I didn’t know how or where to share them. 

There weren’t open mics or opportunities for students at school to share their own words and works of language arts. There was Theatre, but I didn’t quite ever feel like I could get into any of the characters that dead-and-gone playwrights had written for us to become on stage. 

So I stayed off of it for many, many years.

When I did take the stage as an adult at various open mics and poetry readings throughout cities like New York and Austin, I haven’t always found the atmospheres open and accepting. The pieces that get read are often raw with blood-red emotion dripping, open wounds in the form of well-articulated rants. There was not really a place for the type of poetry I liked to write – humorous, full of wordplay and curiosity around what we make our sentences mean. My aim was to create unity–uplift, inspire, and motivate others to use their voice to find confidence and community through feel-good content. I never felt like my words really had a home, so I moved them around a lot.

The written and spoken word have since carried me through careers, crises and across continents to learn and teach. The questions formed and answers found through my years coaching and facilitating workshops and events designed to connect people to their most meaningful messages with those people that it matters most to has been crucial in constructing the vision I hold for the world and my personal mission:

“I create spaces for self-expression to take place.”

The space I now aim to create is WordplayFest, a 3-day festival that empowers artists, performers, and leaders in the art of positive self-expression through language via comedy, poetry, and music with meaningful messages.

Future plans for WordplayFest include substantial donations to 501(c)3 non-profit organizations that supports language arts initiatives in schools so that every child has the education, tools, and spaces to channel their creativity and take their words from the page to the stage. 

Because our words are the most powerful tool we have to create positive change in ourselves, each other and in the world.

-Alison Tugwell

Producer of Punspoken & WordplayFest