by Louis Peitzman || SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE || MAY 2010

Ask a poet where he finds his inspiration and you’re liable to hear any number of answers: life, love, nature. Author Robert Philipson found a different muse – and you might be taken aback by what it was.

“I was reading a lot of (online dating) profiles because I was on various sites looking for companions,” Philipson says. “And I saw that people were writing about themselves in ways in which they revealed themselves – without realizing what they were saying.”

Philipson’s book of poems, Very Good-Looking Seeks Same, collects an eclectic set of poetic profiles that reflect the diversity of the online queer community. He based his work on Edgar Lee Masters’ classic Spoon River Anthology, in which Masters wrote poems in the voice of different members of a fictional town. >>READ MORE

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