Poet

What is a Poet?
Is it that dude with the beret that smokes heavily and condescends modern man with beatnik poetry?
Is he the guy with the dredlocks that spends his time in coffeehouses, posing as an intellectual and discussing what is kitsch?
Is it a sad teenager dressed in black, surrounded by lit candles as he writes of his sorrow in iambic pentameter?
Is it the songwriter of a band, smoking dope and doing drugs, trying to convey his latest trip to his listeners, convincing them of his latest "theories?"
Is it the English professor, referring to the specific formats of the Great Poets and writing sonnets in the style of Spenser?
Is it the lonely, hopeful romantic, writing of his hopeless love, striving for attention from his distant beloved, high upon a pedestal, beyond his lowly grasp?
Is all that a Poet accomplishes a bathetic enterprise?
Who is this Poet, and what does he do? How does he relate to this world? Does he have a purpose? Is the Poet akin to a philosopher in this day and age, an ancient relic from a more savage time, unnecessary and a rude and pathetic sight? Is there a purpose to being a poet, of writing poetry, other than the self-satisfaction one receives from creating, from spilling one's emotions onto looseleaf, college-rule paper?
In Samuel Johnson's "The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia," a tale of a prince who has everything who strives to lose the conveniences of his princely lifestyle in order to learn of the world around him. It is a story of mankind's search for answers, as Rasselas looks throughout the world, towards those who also search for the answers, whether it be scientists or hermits.
In this tale, Rasselas encounters one of the court poets, Imlac, living there to entertain the princes and princesses with tales and poetry, and to educate them. Concerning poetry, and the Poet, Imlac has this to say:

"The business of a poet...is to examine, not the individual, but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances: he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features, as recal the original to every mind; and must neglect the minuter discriminations, which one may have remarked, and another have neglected, for those characteristicks which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness.
"But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the spriteliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude. He must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country; he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same: he must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name; contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations; as a being superiour to time and place." -Imlac. Samuel Johnson's "The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia."