The overwhelming power of the erotic imagination is brought to full flower in this masterful collection of African-American writings.

With pieces from more than seventy writers, Dark Eros explores the erotic possibilities as imagined and reported by authors both well-known and emerging.

Using the literary to trace the range of the erotic impulse, this collection of writers and writings---poetry, fiction, and essays---covers the length and breadth of styles and emotions in contemporary African-American writing. As editor Reginald Martin notes, "The pieces collected in this volume throb with the tempo and tenor of writers who have defined the erotic verve of our urban times. Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, New Orleans-every place there is a bus line or dance club has produced African-American eroticism..." The result is a volume that is both compelling and necessary---an exploration of the African-American through the erotic.