The task of the poet is to pick singular threads from this dense, colorful fabric. In the most extreme cases, cases well known from ancient and modern history, it even poses a lethal threat to society. We're astonished, after all, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm, from an obviousness we've grown accustomed to. Now the point is, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se and isn't based on comparison with something else.
Contemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves.
They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly, as if they were a little ashamed of it. But in our clamorous times it's much easier to acknowledge your faults, at least if they're attractively packaged, than to recognize your own merits, since these are hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself. Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person. Even the worst book can give us something to think about. Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.