A discussion on Todd Swift's blog about mainstream vs innovative poetry, which references a revaluation of Seamus Heaney on Jacket, put me in mind of a poem by Roy Fisher:

SETS

If you take a poem
you must take another
and another
till you have a poet.

And if you take a poet
you'll take another, and so on,
till finally you get
a civilization: or
the dirtiest brawl you ever saw -
the choice isn't yours.