You know you're a poetry blogger if....

Yesterday, I published my blog entry "Poetry vs. Poetry vs. Poetry vs. Poetry," posted a link to the entry on twitter, and headed off to teach my classes. As I drove to work, I began having the strong feeling that I had forgotten something important. I began running through a list in my head.

Turned the iron off? Check.

Locked the door? Check.

Remembered to prepare student handouts for class? Check.

Embedded links in blog entry? .... Embedded links in blog entry? Oh no. That was it.

In my haste, I had neglected to include any links within the body of the post or at the end of the short write-up that would direct readers to specific previous entries that I had written related to the topic. I had failed to include external links to books or poems by poets.

What if new readers needed examples of spoken word artists that I had mentioned? What if they needed to view samples of poems by the established poets that I noted? What if readers wanted more evidence for my claims about literary awards?

At some point in the process of questioning, I could only laugh at myself. Only some nerdy poetry blogger would over-think the absence of links about Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, jessica Care moore, and the black arts era, right? You know you're a poetry blogger if you feel that a blog entry about poetry has to have at least one embedded link leading to more writing about poetry in order to be really useful to your readers.