Last night's APRIL Benediction party at Chop Suey was a blast. Sarah Galvin, wearing a fancy top hat and golden suit-jacket, read people's poetry fortunes from a martini shaker. Over by the photo booth, there were coloring book pages featuring performers Summer Robinson, Rebecca Brown, and Jackie Hell. Robinson read poems about the cosmos (and about Carl Sagan's book Cosmos), Hell was possessed by a demon and threatened to fuck herself with a knife in front of everybody, Matthew Dickman dedicated a poem to the one woman in the audience who loudly announced that she loves Xanax, and Brown gave a nearly giddy benediction for the weeklong book festival: "May you read...may you write books forever." Then a piñata was kicked open by the crowd, revealing penis pops and candy and 10% off coupons for Babeland.

Tonight's APRIL Festival events may not involve sugary phalluses, but they're still going to be a lot of fun. First up is the APRIL Happy Hour Reading featuring Rebecca Bridge, Rich Smith, and Amber Nelson at the Quarter Lounge at 5:30 pm. Here is a comment I found written on a poem Bridge posted on the internet: "This was a good poem. At first I thought it wasn’t subtle enough but then I realized, this was a good poem." Smith is a local poet who has written about fathers. Nelson is the poet behind the beautiful publications of Alice Blue Books. This reading is free, and readings at the Quarter Lounge are always nice and un-reading-like.

Then, at Vignettes, a gallery in the El Capitan apartment building, there's an art exhibit based on Heather Christle's poetry book The Trees The Trees. Christle will read from the book and local artists Eroyn Franklin, Jamey Braden, and Amanda Manitach will show new work. This one is also free.

And lastly, this is not affiliated with APRIL, but it's still a neat event that is a fundraiser for the Hugo House: It's a celebration and inquiry into the work of Laura Albert, who is perhaps better known as J.T. Leroy. Tonight, Rebecca Brown, Sean Beaudoin, and Nicole Hardy will read Albert/Leroy’s work, and Stranger editor Christopher Frizzelle will interview Albert onstage. Find more info about that here, and be sure to check out the readings calendar for more details about all the events going on tonight.

After the jump, I've dropped some photos of the coloring book pages from the benediction party for you to enjoy.