Black.Art.Love: Annual Valentine’s Day Poem 2023 Edition is screening for a suggested donation of $15 or $7 on Thursday, February 9 at 7pm

Maysles Cinema presents Black.Art.Love: Annual Valentine’s Day Poem 2023 Edition, part of an ongoing series curated and presented by Daonne Huff. For this edition, Daonne will perform a new poem dedicated to the late Irene Cara— titled ‘Don’t let them take your Sparkle or Giving him something he can feel or I WANNA MAKE IT TO THE TOP! ( A history of Billboard's R&B Hits) [for Irene Cara, 1959-2022]’— preceding a screening of the film Sparkle (1976).

Sparkle
Sam O’Steen, 1976, 98 min.

The three Williams sisters start out singing in their church choir in Harlem in the late 1950s and become a successful girl group in the 1960s. But their sudden rise to stardom causes problems in their lives.

Series info:

“I know what I want. My music. Everything else is secondary.” – Bleek Gilliam in Mo Better Blues, 1990

A sweeping generalization that has been iconized in literature, film, art, popular culture and word of mouth: Artists (and there is likely a hierarchy of best to worst within the visual, performing, film and literary arts based on ones preferences and proclivities) make horrible partners but fantastic lovers. You will always come second to their practice even if you have the good fortune of being their muse. So if you’re going to go down that path, prepare yourself for a light, loose, fun, lonely, intense, temperamental, tortured, emotional, confusing, frustrating, whirlwind of a time with no expectations, timelines or set plans. But in the process, because it’s all about the process, you’ll likely feel more alive, challenged, engaged and present in ways you hadn’t fathomed before. Because if you’re down for the ride, you’ll witness living and being from a frequency, plane, vibration that you didn’t know existed. And if two artists meet, forget it–it’s cosmic. Am I a romantic? Ridiculously. Hopeless? No. I’m Daonne not Dionne.

Since 2016 when I ended a long term relationship, I began subconsciously then eventually consciously and intentionally creating for myself an “Annual Valentine’s Day Poem”. It’s worth noting that since 2016 I have been single or ending something or in a situationship for this Hallmark card moment. As a result, these offerings could be the musings of a jaded now late thirtysomething but in actuality it’s quite the opposite. I believe in love (thanks bell). So this is an offering rooted in a constant pining and longing whether or not I am currently in the throes of it–plationically, familially, professionally, creatively or romanticly.

For the 2023 edition of Annual Valentine’s Day Poem, through film, I seek to spotlight what it means to pursue a as well as be in and out of love as/with an artist. And in particular, Black artists. And as a Black female artist who statistically has the worst rate of success at online dating, often viewed as the least desirable but the most sexualized, I have always sought examples that show me: “Don’t give up!”. The pursuit of real love is a radical action, a daily choice. And yet despite the odds against us, we try. Despite the inherited traumas, the baggage, the timing, the self doubt, we try. We can not exist in a space of pessimistic trauma alone. Black folks need love too. Even more fiercely, deeply and passionately because our struggle, the fight for it, in all its ways, with whom we want, how we want, when we want has always been personal, public and political. The State has told us who we can or can’t love and yet we do, we will, we must. Our continued existence depends on it. We need models to know how, we need models to know we can. Can I offer a few?

My hope for this series is that strangers connect, singles/couples/thruples/polys get it on, the unhappily single keep the faith and the happily single say happy for you!, artists continue to be/are inspired, catharsis, folks feel seen and affirmed and my sister will loathe this but I hope the audience talks to the screen and to each other when things hit deep. A little Black joy. Can we collectively fall in love with the idea of love, if only for a couple hours, a night, a weekend?

- Daonne Huff