I remember my friend Geoff Brock saying once that he did not like to say, "I'm a poet." He preferred to say, "I write poems." Being a "poet" was something, he suggested, that one should not claim for oneself, because it had a value attached to it.
My quotation above from Robert Archambeau suggests that "poet" in the U.S. today is no longer a "value" but instead a "profession" like any other, or within the academy, a "specialty." As RA concludes:
"I'm not even sure if we've got a name for someone who writes poetry and criticism, indulges in literary theory, teaches and writes about literature from a wide range of countries and periods, and does so for both specialized and non-specialized audiences."
How about "intellectual"?