Is the word 'influential' a euphemism for
'That which gets talked about a lot' ?

It's the stuff everybody says you ought to read, for your own good...

you know, like Philip Larkin & other bores...

Or it's the poetry that makes you want to be a better poet...

which is your own choice...

Bill, it really is too bad that this cut off so abruptly. Steve's comment was excellent, but not the ultimate, surely. If you are never able to read it, or hear it, then poetry can't possibly influence you. I think there is a version of 'talking about' poetry via the comments here on WOL, and the reader/participant begins to influence and be influenced by certain poems and their writers. All of this on a very small scale, I realize, but still valid to your question.

Some writers dodge the very idea of influence as they would bullets! To be marked by someone else's 'influence' is personal poetical death! Quite OTT in my view.

all words 'influence'... all threats have consequences... all words are signifiers all words are threats.

the last words marked
the last gasp
the last
the

'Beauty lies in the gasp between cliches.'

This quote from Ezra Pound has influenced me more than his poetry.