Wednesday Night Poetry (Hot Springs)

Wednesday Night Poetry (WNP) in Hot Springs (Garland County) is the longest-running weekly poetry open mic series in the nation. The first reading was held at the former Giancarlo’s Italian Grotto Restaurant in the bottom of Spencer’s Corner on Wednesday, February 1, 1989. Its launch is most commonly attributed to Bud Kenny, but he said it was the Italian artist Benini, who became a cultural leader in Hot Springs in the late 1980s, who came up with the idea.

Specifics are spotty from 1989 to 2015. The event was held at the Majestic Hotel in 1994. For more than a decade, Dr. Paul Tucker and Suzanne Tucker provided WNP a venue in the Poet’s Loft on Central Avenue, across from Bathhouse Row. Chuck Dodson hosted WNP from March 2012 until May 2015, mainly at Maxine’s (named for Maxine Temple Jones). April 2015 marked the first month in Kollective Coffee+Tea, located at 110 Central Avenue. Bud Kenny, known to wear a top hat and tails, hosted from 2015 to 2019 and often passed around the hat to collect a donation for the featured poet. Kai Coggin began hosting WNP, still at Kollective Coffee+Tea, in 2019. The series has always taken place in downtown Hot Springs except for once: in 2024, Coggin held WNP in partnership with Mid-America Arts Alliance and Charlotte Street of Kansas City, Missouri, as part of that year’s Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference.

The series has not missed a single Wednesday since its inception. When Kenny was absent, it was kept going by the Tuckers, Pam Rawls, Brian Sink, T. Leonard, Jennie Emerson, Chuck Dodson, and Kenny’s younger sister, Max. The series has persisted through holidays, venue closures and expulsions, fires, floods, snowstorms, tropical storms, and city-wide blackouts. Kenny recalled in a news story, “One time when the whole city shut down in an ice-storm, one of the die-hards Dr. Paul Tucker walked with his wife Suzanne to the street outside the venue and read her a love poem in the icy moonlight, just so we could keep our legacy alive.”

From mid-March 2020 to mid-June 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wednesday Night Poetry was held virtually, with poets submitting videos that Coggin compiled. More than 5,000 video poems were shared as part of WNP during the pandemic, around fifty videos a week for roughly ninety weeks. Events were also hybrid or virtual during later outbreaks.

Countless award-winning poets have been featured for WNP, including Jane Hirshfield; Naomi Shihab Nye; Nikky Finney; Aimee Nezhukumatathil; twenty-first U.S. poet laureate (and first Latino U.S. poet laureate) Juan Felipe Herrera; twenty-third U.S. poet laureate (and first Native American U.S. poet laureate) Joy Harjo; twenty-fourth U.S. poet laureate (and first Latina U.S. poet laureate) Ada Limón; Presidential Inaugural Poet to President Barack Obama (the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history and first to be openly gay) Richard Blanco; Colorado’s poet laureate Andrea Gibson (they/them); and many more. Historic guests have also included Rita Dove and Allen Ginsberg.

The weekly event is free of charge and open to all ages and walks of life. Open mic is 6:30 p.m.–7:00 p.m.; a featured poet typically reads 20–30 minutes, 7:00 p.m.–7:30 p.m.; and a second round of open mic follows the feature. More than 4,000 poets from six continents have participated. In addition to featured readers, forty to fifty local poets gather weekly to participate in the open mic. The youngest featured poet in WNP history was nine years old.

Readers and featured poets have performed everything from haiku to slam poetry, as well as prose reading, musical performance, and interpretive dance. The twenty-fifth anniversary was dedicated to Paul and Suzanne Tucker, and Bud Kenny was the featured reader. Kenny died in 2019.

Hot Springs mayor Pat McCabe named Coggin inaugural poet laureate for the city on the anniversary of WNP’s thirty-fourth consecutive year.

For additional information:
Bates, Kathy M., and Garrett Long. “Interview: Kai Coggin.” Arkana 12 (2022). https://arkanamag.org/2022/05/02/interview-kai-coggin/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

Burke, Madeline. “Kai Coggin Brings People, Communities Together through Poetry.” AY Magazine, August 19, 2020. https://aymag.com/kai-coggin-brings-people-poetry-together/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

Coggin, Kai, and Julie E. Bloemeke. “Interview with Kai Coggin and Julie E. Bloemeke.” Tinderbox Poetry Journal 7, no. 3 (January 2022). https://tinderboxpoetry.com/interview-with-kai-coggin-and-julie-e-bloemeke (accessed November 14, 2024).

Dahl, Lorien. “Creative Community: Locals Celebrate Poetry in Intimate New Setting.” Sentinel-Record, April 26, 2015. https://www.hotsr.com/news/2015/apr/26/creative-community-locals-celebrate-poe/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

Harbour, Alison B. “Poetry Readings Mark 25th Year.” Sentinel-Record, February 8, 2014. https://www.hotsr.com/news/2014/feb/08/poetry-readings-mark-25th-year-20140208/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

Hot Springs Area Cultural Alliance: Poetry & Performance. https://hotspringsarts.org/poetry/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

Kendall, Cassidy. “Wednesday Night Poetry Founder Kenny Dies at 71.” Sentinel-Record, October 4, 2019. https://www.hotsr.com/news/2019/oct/04/wednesday-night-poetry-founder-kenny-di/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

“Kudos to Crawford.” Sentinel-Record, October 5, 2014. https://www.hotsr.com/news/2014/oct/05/kudos-to-crawford-20141005/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

“Late Poet Remembered at Poetry Session.” Sentinel-Record, October 21, 2015. https://www.hotsr.com/news/2015/oct/21/late-poet-remembered-at-poetry-session-/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

Peterson, Susan. “Author of the Month: Poet Kai Coggin.” 501 Life Magazine, March 31, 2022. https://501lifemag.com/author-of-the-month-poet-kai-coggin/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

Smittle, Stephanie. “Wednesday Night Poetry Marks Its 1,626th Consecutive Week with a Virtual Open Mic.” Arkansas Times, March 25, 2020. https://arktimes.com/entertainment/2020/03/25/wednesday-night-poetry-marks-its-1626th-consecutive-week-with-a-virtual-open-mic (accessed November 14, 2024).

Thomas, Julia. “Not Just a Fluke: Wednesday Night Poetry Celebrates 30 Years.” Arkansas Times, February 19, 2019. https://arktimes.com/entertainment/ae-feature/2019/02/19/not-just-a-fluke-wednesday-night-poetry-celebrates-30-years (accessed November 14, 2024).

“Wednesday Night Poetry Celebrates 27th Anniversary.” Sentinel-Record, February 2, 2016. https://www.hotsr.com/news/2016/feb/02/wednesday-night-poetry-celebrates-27th-/ (accessed November 14, 2024).

J. Jobe
CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas