Wednesday Night Poetry celebrates 30 years
Wednesday Night Poetry marks its 30th anniversary this week with a new host and the patriarch of the readings, Bud Kenny, as featured poet.
Wednesday Night Poetry was the brainchild of Kenny and Italian-born artist Benini. During a conversation in 1988, Benini, who now lives in Texas, told Kenny of his vision for an arts community in Hot Springs. Shortly after their conversation and a request from Benini, Kenny received a call from the owner of the Grotto Restaurant (now Steinhaus Keller), offering the restaurant as a venue for the event.
The first WNP reading was held there on Feb. 1, 1989, with over
200 in attendance. Since that night, not a single Wednesday night has passed without an open mic poetry reading somewhere in the downtown area, even on holidays, and despite foul weather, power outages and other challenges.
“Over the past 30 years, WNP has been the catalyst for other poetry events including the Arkansas Grand Slam. It began in 1997, and for 15 years offered the world’s largest cash prize for a performance poet. Earlier in the 1990s, it was the springboard for the Arkansas Celebration of the Arts in Poetry. For most of that decade, the festival featured such noted poets as Allen Ginsberg, Lawrance Ferllinghetti and the founder of slam poetry Marc Smith,” a news release said.
“It was Marc who declared WNP to be America’s longest running weekly poetry reading,” Kenny said in the release.
The readings are now held each week at Kollective Coffee+Tea,
110 Central Ave.
Kenny said in the release that the tradition has been kept alive by the poetry community.
“WNP is still going on in spite of me,” Kenny said. “I ran it for the first three years and decided that was enough. So Dr. Paul Tucker stepped in and kept it going for a while. Then someone else took it over, and then I had it again, and it has gone on like that for the past
30 years. I’ve lost track of how many people have been the host.” Kenny, whose latest stint as host began June 2015, will officially hand the reins to Kai Coggin the night of the 30th anniversary.
Wednesday Night Poetry’s mission is to have a place for poets, songwriters and storytellers to share their art, the release said.
“It’s one thing to pour what you feel out on a page,” Kenny said. “But what makes that art complete is sharing it with someone. WNP is all about freedom of speech.”
Every Wednesday evening the program begins at 6:30 p.m. with an open mic session for all poets. Then, at 7 p.m., a featured poet performs for 30 minutes followed by a second round of open mic.
Email budonfoot@yahoo.com for more information.