What Comes First the Thought or the Product?

 Writing poetry and writing about poetry is something akin to cooking from memory and eating food. both actions belong to the same category but are still distinctly different in execution and purpose. In writing about poetry many thoughts like intent, and overall experience are all subject to question. Writing about poetry allows you to ask about the very universality of the piece. It's a necessary prelude to what's to come next which is writing the poetry itself. Old philosopher's like Plato would scoff and mock the very notion of poetics due to their ability to manipulate the masses into feeling emotions that distract them from reality and influence their minds and thoughts deterring them from reason. However Aristotle and those of similar mind would argue that poetry having that kind of effect on people is what gives it meaning and should be embraced by all. now while both are mimetically speaking about the significance of poets and their poetry mimetically speaking when it comes down to writing poetry the question about writing about poetry is synonymous with the act of not just writing, but also reading it as well. All this to say that in my experience of writing about poetry I couldn't help but draw the comparison of how Aristotle and even another romanticism poet like Sir Philip Sydney would uphold things like universality and how conceptually we see and determine what is and isn't beautiful. And in actually writing poetry I write with the intent of getting my experiences and feelings out so that other people can feel and or think about something. so the difference between them isn't really a difference but a similarity in that in order to write poetry you need to at some level have an understanding on what it means to write about poetry. Going back to the beginning and using it as an example you can't really cook without having preconceptual knowledge of what it means to cook something. ultimately you cook for a reason be it for fun or to eat it doesn't matter. In order to cook you need to have a reason no matter how small to do so. Which to me is the same for poetry. You can write for fun or maybe even in some cases to even eat as well. No matter the reason may be in order to write poetry on must always have some inherit reason that motivates and brings them to do it.