WNP founder’s life celebrated Friday with ‘big ol’ party’

Wednesday Night Poetry, which as of today has been held 1,605 weeks in a row, will host a New Orleans-style “Celebration of Life” Friday evening on Bathhouse Row for founder Bud Kenny, 71, who died Oct. 2.

Kai Coggin, the current WNP host, said Gin Hartnett, “the love of Bud’s life,” along with her and other community members, are organizing Kenny’s celebration of life.

“He didn’t want a sad funeral,” Coggin said. “We wanted people to dance and have fun and party. So many people are coming

out of the woodwork to say how he helped them and everything, so it’s just going to be a big ol’ party.”

The celebration will start at 6:15 p.m. and will include 10 galleries having a synchronized reading of Kenny’s poetry. Friday is also the monthly Gallery Walk in downtown Hot Springs.

“It’s going to be the last time his poems are read in the city that he loved all together,” Coggin said.

She noted the poets will be wearing top hats, a staple in Kenny’s wardrobe.

After the reading, everyone will meet at Hill Wheatley Plaza at 6:30 p.m. for a New Orleans-style second-line procession that will travel down Bathhouse Row to Superior Bathhouse Brewery.

Hartnett and other family members will be in a horse-drawn carriage, followed by a trolley and a crowd made up of jazz musicians, kazoo-players and parasol wavers.

Upon arriving at Superior at 7 p.m., Hot Springs Mayor Pat McCabe will proclaim the day as Bud Kenny Day.

Coggin said there will be an open mic for anyone to come and tell a story about Kenny.

“With walking across the country twice, he had a lot of interesting stories,” she said. “People can come and read poems and tell Bud stories and then downstairs some local musicians, Chuck Dodson and Larry Womack, are going to be jamming and there’s going to be dancing, food and drinks and it’ll just be a big ol’ party. We’re going to have one last hurrah in his name because that’s what he would have wanted.”

Coggin said, in addition to being a poet, horse lover and cross-country traveler, Kenny was also a musician who played the tuba, bass guitar and cello.

She said Dodson and Womack volunteered to play at the event because they occasionally played with Kenny.

“Anyone and everyone is invited,” Coggin said. “If you want to come and honor Bud, (whether) you met him once or if you knew him for 40 years. The poetry community is going to be there, lots of the art community is going to be there. We’re all going to come together and celebrate him, but you don’t even have to be a part of an organization.”

Kenny died Oct. 2, “on his own terms,” Coggin said, after enduring heart surgery complications for two months.

“(Bud) came to Hot Springs over 40 years ago after walking 8,000 miles across the country. His mom was living here, so he ended up here and never left,” Coggin said. “He was very active in the art community. He started Wednesday Night Poetry Feb. 1, 1989, under the suggestion of Benini, who was a prominent artist at that time. He built the mule trolley line and he would give tours around historic downtown Hot Springs with a trolley that was pulled by horses. He’s a poet, he’s an author; just a really cool guy.”

She added Kenny was “mentoring people and helping people.”

“He was like a father to me,” Coggin said. “I met him about five years ago, but we got really close and after the 30th anniversary of WNP, he asked me to take over and continue the legacy.”

In Kenny’s obituary, Hartnett wrote, “In lieu of flowers, please perform a Bud-ly act in his memory: Take a hike. Get close to nature. Write a poem. Shake a stranger’s hand. Volunteer in your community. Mentor and encourage a young person. Love with passion and intensity. See the world, slowly. Follow your dreams.”