Words & Music curated by Jesse Paris Smith inspired by No Matter What: Patti Hudson & Friends 

a group exhibition.

Readings and performances from:

Jesse Paris Smith

Jacquelyn Marie Gallo

Jaclyn Jonet

Joseph Keckler

Vasvi Kejriwal

Migwi Mwangi

Anne Waldman

Scroll down for bios.

About our readers and performers:

Jacquelyn Marie Gallo is a writer and artist living in Manhattan. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and is a graduate of the Riggio Writing and Democracy Program at the New School. She has been awarded writing residencies from the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts (‘24) and Catwalk Institute (‘20). Along with regular contributions to the Brooklyn Rail, her work has appeared in PANK Magazine’s Lantinx Anthology, Columbia Journal, Dossier Journal, 12th Street Journal and Art Critical. 

She is currently working on a memoir about caretaking, grief and transformation.

Jaclyn Jonet began her career in production as an intern to Lorne Michaels at Saturday Night Live followed by a two-year stint at his production company, Broadway Video. She starred in two Alex Cox films, "Searchers 2.0" and "Repo Chick", both of which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, as well as the HBO original digital show, "The Boring Life of Jacqueline," directed by Sebastian Silva. With Show of Force, Jaclyn consulted on the PBS docuseries "Soundbreaking" and the multi-platform initiative "Humanity on the Move." Jaclyn has a long-standing passion for non-profit work and has been an advocate for IMC for more than 10 years. With IMC she served as producer on the 2025 PBS docuseries "Women Who Rise" which shot in Ukraine, as well as the docuseries "Climate Changing Us" which recently filmed in Jordan. She is currently producing the series, "People, Planet, Profit" with Baratunde Thurston. She has produced numerous concerts for the organization New Light in Calcutta, India. She is also a certified Death Doula.

Joseph Keckler is a singer, writer and artist. His newest performance, A Good Night in the Trauma Garden was commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His performances have also been presented by NPR Tiny Desk, Lincoln Center, and many others and he tours widely. His debut collection of writing, Dragon at the Edge of a Flat World was published by Turtle Point Press and he is currently working on an album. 

Vasvi Kejriwal is a former lawyer from India. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and shortlisted for the Troubadour Poetry Prize. Her work has been a Finalist for the Yellowwood Poetry Prize and the Epiphany Breakout Prize. She is the recipient of the AI Young Memorial Scholarship from the Community of Writers Conference, along with fellowships from The Watering Hole and MVICW. Vasvi’s poems have appeared / are forthcoming in The Florida Review, Rattle, wildness, Nimrod, Four Way Review, and elsewhere. She is a MFA candidate at NYU, where she teaches creative writing.

Migwi Mwangi is a storyteller from Nairobi. His work has been featured in Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Michigan Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, and West Trade Review among others. A recipient of the George Bogin Award from the Poetry Society of America, he holds an MFA from NYU. He is currently obsessed with Paul Cezanne and Etel Adnan—how they each meditated on the world’s light and darkness through still lives of mountains. There is something there he wants to know.

Anne Waldman, a major force as poet and founder in contemporary poetry, is the author most recently of MESOPOTOPIA, Penguin 2025, Archivist Scissors, Staircase 2025, Bard, Kinetic, 2023, a memoir with poetry, essays, interviews, co-editor with Emma Gomis of New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive, 2022 and also the author of the radical Trickster Feminism, Penguin, 2018. She also published Punch in the Gut of A Star, a cinematic bilingual poem in English & Catalan with Emma Gomis in 2022 and the script for Ed Bowes film of the same title. The Grammy-nominated Burroughs-ian opera Black Lodge with music by David T. Little and libretto by Waldman premiered at Opera Philadelphia in 2022. Waldman has published over 60 + books of poetry, including the 1,000 page feminist epic The Iovis Trilogy: Colors The Mechanism of Concealment which won the PEN Center Literary Award for poetry She is one the founders and a former Director of The Poetry Project at St Marks Church In-the-Bowery and a founder of the Kerouac School at Naropa University in Boulder, CO where she is the Artistic Director of the annual Summer Writing Program. This summer’s theme (June 2025) was “The Living Thread". 

The film about Anne Waldman OUTRIDER directed by Alystyre Julian, and produced by Tamaas Foundation, and executive producer Martin Scorsese premiered at Anthology Film Archive in April 2025 and will be traveling the world.

Jesse Paris Smith is a writer, musician/composer, event producer, and wellness practitioner (grief support, reiki, therapeutic sound) based in NYC. Her godmother, Patti Hudson, is the curator and featured artist of the group show, No Matter What, currently on view now at Pen & Brush.