Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience': They're talking to a single person all the time.
Source: In Webster's Electronic Quotebase, ed. Keith Mohler, 1994.
-- Robert Graves, (Jul 26 1895-1985), English novelist, poet, writer; He authored more than 120 novels, books of poetry and criticism; best known for his historical novel, I, Claudius, 1934.