The April 5 edition of Tuesday Funk included topical haiku by co-host Andrew Huff as varied as the weather.

Can we all survive
the political discourse
now till November?

Must we endure
insults, stunts and posturing
for the next eight months?

This election will
make Thanksgiving dinner more
awkward than normal.

I know how to make
America great again:
vote the bastards out.

Spring weather whiplash
never ceases to surprise.
Sun! Now snow! Now warm!

It'll be pretty much the best thing you can do on a Tuesday, and you know it. This month we've got the likes of Robert Loerzel, Jessi DiBartolomeo, James Finn Garner, Lily Be, and Joe Meno. Andrew Huff and Eden Robins are, as ever, your diligent co-hosts.

Our readings take place at Hopleaf Bar, 5148 N. Clark St. in Chicago. We get started promptly at 7:30 pm in the upstairs lounge. Arrive early if you want a seat -- but no earlier than 7:00 pm. Our readings are free, but only those 21 and over will be admitted. No food can be brought in from the restaurant. RSVP on Facebook if you like. See you there!

Joe Meno is a fiction writer who lives in Chicago. He is the winner of the Nelson Algren Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Great Lakes Book Award, and a finalist for the Story Prize. The bestselling author of seven novels including Hairstyles of the Damned and The Boy Detective Fails, he is a professor at Columbia College Chicago in the Department of Creative Writing. He was a longtime contributing editor to Punk Planet, the seminal underground arts and politics magazine, before it ceased publication in 2007. His latest novel, Marvel and a Wonder, was published in September 2015.

Please join Joe and all our amazing readers on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Jessi DiBartolomeo hails from the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, which is just as bad as it sounds. She packed her car with her belongings and cat and made the drive to Chicago in the miserably humid summer of 2011 and has been dicking around in the Midwest ever since. She finds joy in volunteering for CHIRP Radio, which has included volunteer coordination for the organization, interviewing bands such as Chelsea Wolfe, Small Black, Sinkane, and Yuck, audio production, and being an on-air DJ who plays songs that remind her of feelings from high school. Her day job is general managing a very strange local doughnut shop called Doughnut Vault. She doesn't have anything published, but blogs, tweets, instagrams, facebooks, snaps, tumbles, and stares off into the dark in those quiet moments waiting for sleep.

Please join Jessi and all our amazing readers on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Lily Be is a momma, a nanny, and storyteller. She's a wise Mexican badass from Humboldt Park, Chicago. You can hear her tells stories everywhere and anywhere. Lily is a Moth GrandSLAM champion and the host and producer of her own storytelling show, The Stoop. A bio does not do Lily Be justice. After listening to her stories, you should talk to her and invite her over to make tamales. Experience the magic that is Lily Be.

Please join Lily and all our amazing readers on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Robert Loerzel is a freelance journalist and photographer in Chicago. His historical nonfiction book Alchemy of Bones: Chicago's Luetgert Murder Case of 1897 was published in 2003 by the University of Illinois Press. His reporting and writing have appeared in many publications, including the Tribune, the Reader, Chicago magazine, Crain's Chicago Business, Playbill, Belt magazine and Time Out Chicago. He has reported on-air for WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, including stories for the Curious City show. Robert's concert photography and reviews appear on his blog, undergroundbee.com. His Twitter account, @robertloerzel, has more than 8,500 followers, and in 2013, the Newcity alternative newspaper named him the "Best Chicago Twitterer for news."

Please join Robert and all our amazing readers on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

James Finn Garner is the author of the award-winning clown noir mystery series, Rex Koko, Private Clown, as well as the Politically Correct Bedtime Stories trilogy. A former columnist for Chicago Magazine, he has also read extensively at Chicago's "live lit" events. During the season, he publishes and curates a blog of baseball poetry and doggerel, Bardball.com.

Please join James and all our amazing readers on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, upstairs at Hopleaf at 7:30 pm. This 21-and-older event is free.

Are you ready for spring? Get ready for warmer weather with some eclectic live lit at Tuesday Funk on April 5. Join us in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf for readings by Robert Loerzel, Jessi DiBartolomeo, James Finn Garner, Lily Be and Joe Meno! Andrew Huff and Eden Robins are your witty co-hosts, and Jason will be behind the bar, ready to whet your whistle

Doors open at 7pm -- no earlier! really! -- and the show starts at 7:30 sharp. So get there early to grab a seat, but not too early. As always, admission is free, but you must be 21 or older. And come early or stay late after for some great Belgian-style food downstairs.

Please RSVP on Facebook, and bring a friend. And don't forget to become a fan so you never miss an invitation to one of our readings.

Tuesday Funk co-host Andrew Huff paid his respects to Eden Robins' car, felled by a tree, at the March 1 show.

The promised snow storm
arrived a week later, so
thank you for coming.

It's Super Tuesday!
Let's hope people vote with
brains, not bigotry.

Make America
safe from that vulgarian
Donald Trump again.

This is how it ends.
Not with a nomination,
but with a "Please clap."

Requiem for a
2004 Elantra.
Felled by an old tree.

Super Tuesday may be super, but it can't hold a candle to Tuesday Funk. Matt Fogarty put us in the right mood with his stories about space traveling dinosaurs and going to the moon in a barrel, and then Felix Jung mellowed us out with his wistful poems about love, death, and other juicy poetry stuff. Then Rosamund Lannin finished off the half with a meditation on the many meanings of fear and failure.

Bartender Alex filled our glasses expertly.

After the half, co-host Andrew Huff read his well-loved haiku, and then Kelly Swails entertained us with a chapter from her new book about a school for world domination, This May Go on your Permanent Record. Finally, Mark Borowsky had us roaring with his essay about his obsession with watching sports and how the many-worlds interpretation gives him comfort.

Here's a tip: Take a break from politics to make and support art. Your brain deserves better than Trump! So come see us next month, on Tuesday, April 5 with Joe Meno, Robert Loerzel, Jessi DiBartolomeo, James Finn Garner, and Lily Be!