The 20th Day of Community: Kathleen Overby

Some time ago, a comment left here on a blog post took me to the commenter’s web site. And I discovered someone who, seeing that newbies like me were writing poetry and posting it online, decided to make the leap. I sent an email to L.L. Barkat, who with Eric Swalberg is my co-conspirator in publishing TweetSpeak Poetry, and said, “I think we’ve done a good thing here.”

The commenter was Kathleen Overby, who lives in Washington State and somehow manages two blogs – Neoteny and Almost Paradisical.

At Neoteny, she says that her purpose is about play: “One of my passions as a wife, parent, friend and woman, is to invite others -- to play. Let's not forget how to lie on our stomachs in the dirt, have water fights, lay on our backs and watch cloud pictures, laugh till we wet our pants and cry with cheek cramps. Deep play takes many forms. I want to explore this with you. Let's hold hands and skip.” And that’s where she invites fellow bloggers to guest post about what they do in their lives to play. In her most recent post, she reviewed Sex, Lies and Religion by Randy Elrod; read the review to see some of her thinking.

At Almost Paradisical, she publishes her poetry and what I would call her “prose musings.” I love to read her poems. There is a childlike innocence about them, like when a young heart creates something just for you, and rather shyly opens a hand to show you. Look at her poems and you’ll see for yourself -- poems like “Pile of Rocks,” “Sugar Words,” and “Rock Salt.” An example of her “prose musings” is “Twenty Camels?” – a love story about two people who fell in love on a trip to Israel and Jordan, and couldn’t be together on Valentine’s Day.

And to top all of this off, two of her favorite movies are “Babette’s Feast” and “Enchanted April” – which happen to be two of the favorite movies of my wife and me.

Check out her blogs. You can also follow her on Twitter. And you’re in for a real treat with her poetry.


(In December, a number of us participating in the “Twelve Days of Community” - see the button at the top right - sponsored by The High Calling Blogs. The purpose was to highlight the blog or web site of someone other than ourselves during the season of Advent and Christmas. I liked the idea so much that I’m continuing to do that each week -- highlight a blog or web site of a person whose thoughts and writing have had an impact on me and others.)