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JH: Your "you can see poets becoming literature" came to me as the actual poets dying and the written word remaining. Literature as letters (missives; characters of an alphabet), as written matter. You read literature with everyone else, yes, and you read literature along with everything else. The back of a cereal box is as read and removed from your production (writing) as Tess of the D'Urbervilles or one of your own written poems. I've earlier formulated, poetry + time = poetry, and can now progress to poetry + time = literature. What then does literature plus time equal? I would claim that time has no equal bearing on literature, save for physical destruction, or alteration, of instances. Writing being mnemonic, literature is a structure from which poetry can be received.
AHB: You're right. Literature lives on after the poet, and the poet exchanges his/her life to the thingness (that's a Heidegger word) of literature. I like the image of literature as a building—or holy grotto, to pretty the picture—in which poetry resides. I fear I may step into icky territory but literature is like a church. you go to it with a certain respect and expectation, a receptivity. it's a timeless place, where writing from millennia ago, in any/all languages, can be accessed. having presented that image, I don't want to harp on any religiousity of literature. but let me now switch topics. you've recently been plying the Wryting-L list with quite a bit of work, at least two series. I'm only just now catching up to this work, having been offline the past week and more, but let me offer Exhibit A, if it please the court.

D: GRANDUNCLES OF the CATTLE TRADE

fuaefshff n hetiusafhie n oissichoa n wade n fdoudf
hetiusafhie n oissichoa n wade n fdoudf n weiie
oissichoa n ifeov n fdoudf n weiie n aeohdeff
wade n fdoudf n weiie n aeohdeff n iuhffde
fdoudf n weiie n aeohdeff n iuhffde n herdhwid
weiie n aeohdeff n iuhffde n herdhwid n aoahe
aeohdeff n iuhffde n herdhwid n aoahe n raeodu
iuhffde n herdhwid n ridiiot n raeodu n suisduin
herdhwid n aoahe n raeodu n suisduin n uderdudr
aoahe n raeodu n suisduin n uderdudr n desiaeafiun
raeodu n suisduin n tfocei n desiaeafiun n udai
suisduin n uderdudr n desiaeafiun n udai n onstduf...

this is not your usual poem. it would certainly shock many readers. should I, as typical dumb resistant reader, wonder how you produced this text? should I take it as a conundrum, something coded? I ponder it wondering how to pronounce the words. I should add that this is part of a series, but its fellows don't offer this particular challenge. what's the poetic act here?

onstduf...