Debra Dylan: Spoken word circus
Walk on the wild side with Jack Rentfro
“Apocalypso!”
“Music to Listen to While Listening to Music and the Words that Go With It!”
These are the titles to a few of the spoken word happenings recently performed by award winning writer and local personality Jack Rentfro. “I don’t necessarily want to give a name to all the shows. Sometimes, you don’t know if the baby is going to make it through that first winter. So you don’t give’em a name. That way, you don’t get so attached.”
Jack has been attached to the creative writing process since winning his first poetry award while in grammar school. “I’ve been shivering in the literary punch line ever since.” His fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in the last four Knoxville Writers’ Guild anthologies, and he was the 2006 recipient of the Guild’s Leslie Garrett Short Story Award. Rentfro has also combined his experience as a professional journalist with his interest in history and music, and authored the book “Cumberland Avenue Revisited: Four Decades of Music from Knoxville, Tennessee” (Cardinal Publishing 2003). He says his “spoken word performances are the culmination of 30 years of participating in creative happenings around town.”
You can catch Jack’s entertaining spoken-word side show this Thursday, February 8, at Preservation Pub, with the irreverent Phil Pollard & his Band of Humans. The fun begins at 10:00 p.m.
For a sample, please listen to the “Your State or Mine” podcast from Todd Steed’s website ObKnoxCast. This selection features Jack Rentfro performing with the Band of Humans’ vibraphonist, Phil Pollard, and pianist, Geol Greenlee.
“I Was Driving Under the Influence of Kerouac”
The phrase “spoken word” inevitably conjures up images of hippy-dippy-Greenwich Village coffeehouses, beatnik berets, bongos, and finger-snapping in lieu of applause. Jack admits that while this style of literary performance is “easily ridiculed and parodied now, it was revolutionary at the time.” He sites Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder and LeRoi Jones as his early influences and inspirations.
As far as modern influences, Jack says he “has seen Minton Sparks and especially Laurie Anderson pull off a lot of wild combinations with music, technology and words. Anderson, more than any other single artist, has convinced me there’s a place for spoken word.”
Jack believes the addition of musical accompaniment is one thing that separates spoken word from slam and other forms of pubic readings. “Spoken word tends to be more conversational in tone and is more likely to be read from a printed page; whereas, slam seems to rely more on emotional interjection. And, slammers tend to memorize their material, which is a skill I envy.”
“I’ve been doing this [spoken word] for years. What I’m doing now is far more evolved that what we [in Knoxville] were doing back in the ‘80s. Nowadays, I have the luxury of having an incredible talent pool of musicians who are very supportive of what I do.
“I Don’t Like Seeing Other People Humiliated, But I Don’t Care What Happens to Me Anymore”
When preparing for a show, Rentfro says he sorts through all of his creative writing pieces. “My prose is much stronger, but I like to use my shorter poems as a kind of chapter break when performing.” He rehearses at home with a bass guitar and an old amplifier and microphone. He also selects material based on the type of crowd and venue where he will be performing.
“It IS possible, by the way, to rock a bookstore. Or a library. It is also possible to do thoughtful, sensitive essays set to a mild beat in front of a room full of drunks.” A musician himself (formerly with Cheap Shoes), Rentfro sketches out ideas and chords to accompany his work.
He says “rhythm and sheer sonic quality have always been extremely important to me in my creative writing.” Rentfro claims the music is “at least 50 percent of the content” of his spoken word shows. “I think of what I’m doing as being “in a band.” It’s supportive to have these people up there with me while I make an ass of myself.”
This self-proclaimed paranoid introvert is frequently accompanied by Phil Pollard, Geol Greenlee, and Chris Zuhr, all from the Band of Humans. This trio provides what Rentfro refers to as “the Great American Songbook.” Some musical selections are deliberately chosen to provide irony and/or additional comedy to the spoken word selections. (i.e., “You Always Hurt the One You Love” as background to a particularly sadistic rant.)
Sometimes he is joined by Brandon Beavers, Brandon Johnson, David Phillips and “Kukuly” Uriarte, who provide more of a world-music flair accompaniment with strings, horns, and middle-eastern percussion.
With little or no rehearsal time with the bands, Jack compares the “thrill of working without a net” to the “adrenalin fix enjoyed by people who jump out of airplanes. The musicians are my parachute.”
“Now, I just have to keep writing new and better stuff if I want to keep my seat on this crazy bus ‘rolling down Gay Street on square wheels’” he says, quoting a line from R.B. Morris.
“The Only Revolution is the One Inside Your Head”
Rentfro credits “singer-songwriter laureate (now UT Writer-in-Residence) R.B. Morris for single-handedly kick starting a live, musical poetry scene in Knoxville. Rentfro also gives a nod to “local actor-provocateur Greg Congleton” for staging the first of several local performances of Jack Kerouac’s book-length poem “Mexico City Blues.”
The poetry scene in Knoxville continues to enjoy a surge in popularity with readings and/or slams being hosted at the Corner Lounge, World Grotto, Preservation Pub, 11th Street Espresso House, Carpe Librum Booksellers and The Lost Savant bookstore. The University of Tennessee’s “Writers in the Library” series is frequently supported by a large audience of students, writers and word enthusiasts. The Knox County Public Library System has also played host to popular writing workshops and performances.
Jack Rentfro would like to thank the following local artists and supporters who have kept and continue to keep the creative writing/performance scene alive in Knoxville:
Black Atticus; Ashley Capps; Greg Congleton; Jeff Daniel; Donna Doyle, Casie Fedukovich; Larry Frank; Brian Griffin; Rus Harper; Nelda Hill; Sheryl Hill; Marilyn Kallet; Tony Lawson; Ann Lloyd; Judy Loest; Linda Parsons Marion; Kali Meister; R.B. Morris; Julia Nance; Phil Pollard; Matt Shafer Powell; Daniel Roop; Benny Smith; Todd Steed; Rhea Sunshine; and, Scott and Bernadette West.
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Saturday, March 10
Jack Rentfro & others
Benefit for Detroit Dave
Corner Lounge
842 N. Central Street
Knoxville, TN
(865) 971-1711
Details to be announced
Friday, April 20
Jack Rentfro with Phil Pollard
Benefit for Hellbender Press
Corner Lounge
842 N. Central Street
Knoxville, TN
(865) 971-1711
Details to be announced