Friday, Oct. 18, the College of William and Mary’s student-run spoken word poetry organization Inside Out Theatre hosted its first ever guest speaker, Breeze the Poet, for a slam poetry masterclass in Washington Hall.
Frederick Eberhardt, who writes under the pseudonym Breeze the Poet, is a spoken-word performer from Richmond, Va, and his accolades include numerous national and regional poetry slam championships. In addition to writing and performing his poetry, Eberhardt offers coaching and workshops on the craft through his “Dojo” program.
Members of Inside Out Theatre saw Eberhardt place first at the Colonial Triangle Grand Slam in Williamsburg last semester, a competition organized by local nonprofit Slam Connection. They had also seen his performances at several local open mics. Inside Out Theatre president Pooja Muthuraj ’25 described what drew the club unanimously to Eberhardt as its first ever guest speaker.
“[We] thought he was a phenomenal performer in terms of his stage presence, in terms of the stories he was telling and how he was telling them, and that it was really important to highlight those stories and learn from him how to show our own stories in a similar way, in a similarly powerful way,” Muthuraj said.
Inside Out coordinated the event with the College, setting up the necessary contracts for a guest speaker. The club opened the workshop to any interested students, but specifically promoted the event to the Black Poets Society to extend the lesson to a broader group of attendees.
Meanwhile, Eberhardt planned the content of the masterclass, using material from a months-long workshop program he had previously run. Eberhardt observed the overall similarity of working with college-aged students, compared to the adults he usually coaches.
“I made myself not over-explain,” Eberhardt said. “There was a thought that I might have needed to at one point, and then it was like, these are grown people. They comprehend probably better than you. So let’s relax and just talk regular and have a conversation with them.”
The theme of Eberhardt’s lecture was “radical vulnerability.” He defined this term for participants and explained its implications for writing more authentic poetry.
“Radical vulnerability is allowing oneself to reveal uncomfortable aspects about themselves as a form of healing or resistance, or maybe even informational purposes,” Eberhardt said. “As poets, we deal with this unconsciously on a regular basis. I personally feel like making a conscious decision to practice radical vulnerability rather than doing so unconsciously is a deliberate attempt to release and afford the benefit of a deeper level of vulnerability.”
Eberhardt specifically engaged in questioning exercises with the attendees, prompting them to challenge the deeper meanings behind their thoughts to allow for more broadly relatable reflections in their writing.
“If I write my work from a surface level of just myself and don’t go into any of the deeper aspects that go along with it, then I’m essentially leaving the audience out of it, because the way they’re going to be able to connect with what I’m saying is being able to find themselves in it,” Eberhardt said. “Now, if I’m just writing about myself and my feelings in this surface moment right now, there’s less for them to take with them.”
Eberhardt began his lesson with a performance of one of his poems, then led a 15-minute timed ice breaker exercise, asking attendees to fill in the blanks of an “I am poem.” This involved filling out prompts that started with templates consisting of “I” followed by a verb, such as “I am,” “I wonder” and “I dream.” Participants read their writings aloud while attendees snapped along to show their support. Eberhardt followed with feedback and encouragement.
After playing and discussing video clips of examples of “radically vulnerable” slam poetry and performing another of his own works, Eberhardt provided another writing prompt to attendees that encouraged similar authenticity: “What are you holding onto that’s stopping you from evolving?” Again students volunteered to read their work, and Eberhardt provided feedback and answered questions from attendees. For his own part, Eberhardt described why he removes his shoes when he performs.
“It’s a psychological thing, because you release everything either [out of the] top of your head or through your feet,” Eberhardt said. “So everything ailing me, or everything that got me nervous, I take my shoes off so they can go.”
This is Inside Out Theatre’s first year as an official student organization, having previously operated under the Center for Student Diversity. Muthuraj noted that this new status provides the club more leeway in its operations and has encouraged it to diversify its activities, from hosting such guest speakers to attending off-campus open mic nights. Another primary motivation for this change, according to Muthuraj, was to be able to table at the activities fair, making the club more accessible to students interested in joining after their annual “One Tribe, Many Stories” performance at new student orientation.
“We wanted to be able to reach out to students that wanted to join Inside Out theater and were looking for that community, and it’s been successful,” Muthuraj said. “We’ve had a lot of people stop by our table and join Inside Out this year who are just such talented poets, and we’re really excited to see them perform.”
Inside Out advertised the masterclass as being open to students of all skill and experience levels. Muthuraj noted that the club strives to be as accessible as possible to beginners of slam poetry in all of its activities, due to the interactive nature of the art.
“I think that something really beautiful about it is that it’s accessible to anybody, whether you just want to come and observe, because you are still actively engaged in it: you’re snapping, you’re saying ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ when you hear parts of the poem that are particularly striking, and that encourages the performer to go even further,” Muthuraj said.
Event attendee Maya Meehan-Ritter ’28 is not an Inside Out member, but she was encouraged to attend the masterclass, as someone with experience and interest in poetry, when she saw it listed online.
“I’ve never really done slam poetry workshops before, I’ve just heard it a lot,” Meehan-Ritter said. “My writing style, especially my poetry, is usually focused on how things sound, and sound value, so it kind of tends to sound like slam poetry. So I’d like to figure out how I can actually make actual slam poetry, and this was a cool opportunity.”
For any students interested in pursuing spoken word and slam poetry, Inside Out Theatre meets Fridays at 5 p.m. in the McLeod Tyler Wellness Center studios. As for slam poetry itself, Eberhardt provided advice to any students at the College interested in the craft.
“Write,” Eberhardt said. “Surround yourself with it. It’s there, it’s everywhere. Even if it’s not there, you can create it if you surround yourself with it, because not being able to access it is going to do something to you.”