Brown Sugar.

Brown Sugar by Carlo Taylor Plume Books, January 2001, $13.00, ISBN 0-452-28224-1

"Night, soft belly of a blues goddess," from Jabari Asim's, "Rocket Love," exemplifies the sensuous symphony of erotic word-songs orchestrated by editor, Carol Taylor. The varied and consistently gifted voices use flowing prose to honor myriad erotic expressions of black sensuality.

Although several stories fall short of Taylor's ambitious goal of "redefining black sexuality," with images of the willingly subjugated, or consciously unconscious, "man-at-any-cost" woman or, equally troublesome, the sister finding sexual empowerment in the arms of a white man (in a book of black erotica), they are countered by other tales that do fulfill Taylor's vision. Particularly noteworthy are Asim's lushly descriptive passages, Michael Gonzales' jagged, strobelit, digital daydreams in "Movie Lover," and Kwame Dawes' deft use of Caribbean color in a subtle portrait of long distance desire becoming real-life revelation, "Deecy and Pheo."

Taylor also includes, in this sleekly edited collection, voices of lesbian and gay eros. Disappointingly, of the three lesbian tales included in this anthology, none chronicle the erotic celebration of black women loving women. More interesting, were the stories from the gay contributors. In Reginald Harris' "The Dream," a tour of homosexual lust includes a peek into the private rooms of a man's secret longings.

"It's time to heat it up," Taylor challenges us. And by sharing stories where both man and woman are simultaneously uplifted by the sharing of the erotic, this collection takes a step toward the reclamation of black intimacy. As Brown Sugar steps out on the largely unchartered terrain of black erotica, it sets a noble standard for collections that follow.

Kathleen E. Morris is the author of Speaking in Whispers--African American Lesbian Erotica. She lives and writes full time in Columbia, Maryland, and is at work on her first erotic adventure novel, The Game.