Melville began Moby Dick with, "Call me Ishmael" Not to be outdone, I often begin some of my comments with, "I call myself a poet."
I have the "creds" as they say. Never said "good" poet, but I do write stuff that others have recognized and acknowledged to be poetry. Even had a few works published back when paper was king.
You might say, BC = Before Computers. The dark ages of our modern era.
Anyway, in addition to writing what others may or may not see, or have seen, thoughts and images, snippets of originality, inspired by damn near anything (once wrote a poem about a tuna sandwich), flow through my mind, often aching to come out as something on paper or, these days, computer screen.
Still, with all that to work with, ninety percent of what is running through my scattered mind doesn't find any outlet, and runs off into the woods of my thoughts, and, although I may hear some laughter or squeals or giggles, or sobbing, from the departed ideas somewhere off in the woods, I am left to wonder who or what those strange creatures were ... beautiful and exciting, gloomy and brooding, bland and too insufficient to maintain existence.
I was reading Hazlitt (William) last night and, in one of his beautifully crafted essays which rolls off the tongue of my mind, he makes the point that once one becomes an artist, it's all about art. It's in everything they see and think about.
Poets are like that too, I believe. And, like the artist, you never see some of their/our best work... sometimes only practice pieces... set down to keep our hand in.
Beware of brooding poets but remain calm. The gloom you often see upon them has nothing to do with you (probably), but, more with the odd creatures romping through their minds, often disappearing into darkness, forgotten before they can leave a trace of their ephemeral existence.